Re: VMs: Folio and Quire numbers

["Jeff" <jeff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: "Bruce Grant" <bgrant@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: 03 April 2004 03:25
Subject: Re: VMs: Folio and Quire numbers


> Nick Pelling wrote:
>
> > I'd also agree that it is too (structurally) complicated for it to be
> > a *single* cipher from any era - but note that I posit it as a
> > carefully-constructed compilation of cipher techniques. Its structure
> > would therefore arise from the *combination* of elements within the
> > system, not from the innate algorithmic complexity of any single
element.
>
> This type of argument can get you into trouble, I think. For example, I
> remember years ago running across a tract which attempted to show that
> the Bible must be divinely composed because of a large number of
> statistics about it which involve the number seven. For example (I'm
> making up a couple since I don't recall the ones in the tract), the
> number of words referring to plants was exactly divisible by seven, also
> the number of occurences of the word "and", the number of verses, and so
> on. Other things were divisible by 77 or 777. The author went on to
> argue that no human being could have composed a book in which all of
> these counts came out correct simultaneously as the last word was being
> written.
>
> The flaw in the argument is that the autohor of the tract got to pick
> which statistics to use after the fact. Similarly, not knowing anything
> about the method of encryption, we don't know which features are
> siginificant, and therefore whether the structure is realy complex or not.
>

As Steve Ekwall always keeps saying it IS simpler than you think. :-)

> (At least, that's how it looks to me.)
>
> Bruce
>
>
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