WEBVTT - How The Voynich Manuscript Works 0:00:01.880 --> 0:00:05.320 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, friend House Stuff Works 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:13.560 dot Com, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:18.560 There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and uh Noel's over there, 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.400 and this is Stuff you should know. Which episode I'm 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:25.640 not a percent sure yet. Let's do this one. Okay, 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:31.800 how's it going. It's going pretty well, man? Yeah, yeah, 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:36.360 how over with you? I'm pretty excited about both the shows. Yeah, 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:40.000 these are gonna be blockbusters if we can get them right. 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:45.160 Let's right, they're gonna break the box office. Yeah. Uh so, Chuck, 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:48.080 where you ever? Um? Have have you ever heard of 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:53.680 the Voytage Manuscript before? Prior to this? It's it's fairly famous. Yeah, 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:57.240 but just a few years ago, like through working here. Yeah, 0:00:57.240 --> 0:00:59.280 thanks to the stuff they don't want you to know 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.880 boys today. I'm sure they covered this already. Certainly, there's 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:04.759 just no way. It may have been their first episode. 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:07.440 You know. You just say the words ancient codex and 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:10.759 guys come flying. Yeah, they're like, what do you want? 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:13.120 When they open their trench coats and they got ancient 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:16.600 codices aligning it. Um. Well, for those of you who 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:19.200 don't know what the Voyage Manuscript is It is a 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:23.920 what appears to be a legitimate medieval codex, which is 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:29.160 stuff that was formerly a loose leaf manuscript that's been 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:33.559 bound later on. That's what a codex is. Um. That 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:36.920 is written in a language that no one has any 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.640 idea how to read. It's never read it, it's never 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.880 been seen before. Um. It doesn't appear in any other 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:47.840 type of writing that's known to survive. And it's also 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:54.800 illustrated with some really bizarre pictures, like otherworldly plants, women 0:01:54.920 --> 0:02:00.280 doing things that you are aren't readily identifiable. They're hears 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:05.720 to be a recipe section, yes, pharmac pharmacological section. Yeah. 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:11.560 It's almost like a a farmer's almanac of sorts from 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:17.160 medieval times, written in language and depicting plants and things 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:21.320 that have never existed. And the reason why it's it 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:25.000 seems legitimate is that it bears a striking resemblance two 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:27.600 similar books at the time. But those books are written 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:31.080 in things like Old English or Italian or things that 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:34.360 people can read, and they have pictures of plants in 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:36.960 them that you point to and say, oh, well, that's 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:40.520 a holly bush or something. This is not the case. 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:45.679 The thing is a mysterious otherworldly tome that clearly made 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:49.040 an appearance. Somehow it crossed over from a parallel multiverse 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:51.880 into this one accidentally. Yeah, I've got my theory, which 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:54.680 I'll just go ahead and tease the listener with it. 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:58.440 I'll throw out later. Okay, that's it. That's your teeth. 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:01.079 I'll throw out my you've got the theory, but I 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:03.400 just laid mine on the table. Which is what that 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:07.120 it's it's a book from a parallel multiverse to ours. Dude, 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:09.520 it's slipped into this. It's like that. Have you heard 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:13.240 that barren Stain bears theory? Yeah? Sure, I don't remember 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:15.720 it is barren Stein. I always remember, is Barren Stain. 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:19.960 Oh really, huh you're the only one. No, that's not true. 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:23.160 You're one of the few. I was really surprised to 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:26.359 hear people thought it was barren Stein. But apparently as 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.000 far as that theory goes, and if you don't know 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:30.440 what I'm talking about, just like a barren Stain Bears theory, 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:34.600 I guess. Yeah. I mean I was convinced that barren 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:40.200 Stein Berenstein, Yeah, but not a e instead Berenstein Bears 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:43.400 always always Barren Stain. For me, it's so weird, and 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:45.400 I'm one of those that was so convinced. I was like, no, 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:49.120 this is clearly some weird hoax because it's the Berenstein Bears. 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.680 Everybody knows that that's so funny. And I'm not alone, 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.240 like it seems like the majority of people are definitely, 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:58.400 they're very You're one of the few barren Stainers. Well, 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:03.240 its supposedly, according to this this hypothesis, I actually managed 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:06.200 to slip over from a multiverse into this one without 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:11.400 realizing it from the baron staying in the universe. So um, anyway, 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:13.720 Let's get back to the Voyage Manuscript, shall we, because 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:17.720 it is a real deal thing, um, and it apparently 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:21.359 it has a certain amount of providence to it. We 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:25.040 know about when it first popped up thanks to a 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:29.919 seventeenth century letter that identifies it as having been purchased 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:34.679 by one Rudolph the Second, who was the Holy Roman 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:40.280 Emperor for a while. Um. And Rudolph loved curious things, right, 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:46.800 he collected um little people apparently. Uh, he had a 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:50.320 cabinet of curiosities of sorts, and he was very interested 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:52.479 in this Voyage manuscript, so much so that he paid 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:56.000 six hundred gold dukits for it, which is apparently about 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:58.760 the same as ninety thou dollars today for this book 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:02.440 because he a lot and he supposedly was the first 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:07.320 owner of the Voyage manuscript. That's right. It has been 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:12.680 dated um with carbon dating to the early fourteen hundreds. Uh, 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.440 And it has a very strange it's not written on 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.159 parchment or any kind of regular paper. It's written on 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:23.880 calf skin, which is not a it's sort of is 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:26.200 a somewhat of a giveaway or at least a big 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:31.680 clue what that it dates it. Yeah, well, we'll talk 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.080 about whether or not it's a hoax if someone found 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:38.440 this this vellum, and that'd be very strange to create 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.719 a hoax and dig up hundreds of year old calf skin. 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.640 So it's not likely that's a hoax. No, there's all 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:47.640 sorts of reasons it's it's not a hoax, but that 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:51.960 that rumor still persists. So in six nine, this antique 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:55.040 collector and progue named George Bresch he uh sent a 0:05:55.120 --> 0:06:00.880 letter to this dude uh a fantasist I think so, 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.880 a fantasyist cuature. He was a scholar in Rome. And 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:07.240 he basically said, and this is so weird to me. 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.120 He's he teases this guy, It's like, I've got this thing. 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:13.359 It's really weird. It's got all these crazy symbols and 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:17.440 images and this alphabet that is uh, unknown to anyone. 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:20.120 But I'm just not gonna send it t Im, just 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.000 gonna tell you about it. Well, he loved it himself. 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:26.160 He tried to crack the code himself, the guy who 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:28.240 was the owner of it at the time. But I 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:30.360 send that letter, just teasing the guy and be like, 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:32.880 have a nice day, because he wanted him. He he 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:34.720 wanted him to crack it for him, but he didn't 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:36.599 want to give up the book. Well how can you 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:38.640 crack it if you don't send it. Well, you can 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.760 send like, um, facsimiles of it that kind of stuff. 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:44.320 So he did that, I believe. So I know he 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.880 was cracking it himself. But this guy UM an atheist 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:52.080 Kirk creature. He uh. He was supposedly very well known 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:55.240 at the time for having cracked Egyptian hieroglyphics, even though 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:57.960 it later turned out he had gotten it wrong. But 0:06:58.000 --> 0:06:59.400 that's why I wonder why I didn't send it to 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:03.600 the guy. Well, the lesson has learned because um what 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:07.200 was the dude's named barsh the original guy who wrote 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:11.320 the letter. Yeah, George boresh So, um, he dies and 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:16.160 he's he dedicated his life to cracking the Voynage Manuscript, 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:19.120 which wasn't called the Voyage Manuscript by that point. No, 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:20.640 I should point out I don't think I had a 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:24.160 name at the time. I actually called this something. Um, well, 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:26.480 they definitely didn't call it the Voyage Manuscript. We'll see 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:30.640 in a minute. But um, George boresh Uh, he died 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.080 and he gave it to a friend of his, Jan 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:38.320 Mark Marcy. And Marcy is pretty good reason or supports 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:40.440 the idea that Borresh didn't want to give up the 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:44.520 book for good reason, because he actually did contact um 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:48.760 the Jesuit living living in Rome Kircher and said, hey, 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:53.080 here's the book, figure it out, and the guy never 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:56.160 got it back. So if Borsch wanted to keep his book, 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:59.200 he was very smart to not send it to Kircher. Well, 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:02.040 and when he sent it, when Marcy sent it to Kircher, 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.120 he said, by the way, um, I know a little 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:07.160 bit about the background. It looks like it was of 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.600 the work of Roger Bacon. Yeah, even though there was 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.400 no nothing to back that up. Well there there isn't 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:15.480 anything to back it up. And that's actually it turns 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.720 out Rudolph the Second believed that it was a work 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.800 of Roger Bacon when he bought it. That's right. Roger 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:25.720 Bacon was this. Um, he was basically a proto scientist 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:29.680 from the thirteenth century in England. And we've talked about 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:32.200 him before, I think in the Scientific Method episode, like 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:34.480 he really helped lay the groundwork for science in the 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:36.880 Western world. Yeah, he's credited with a lot of things 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:40.760 he didn't do too. Oh is that right? Yeah? Um, well, anyway, 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:44.160 this is possibly one of them. They there's still a 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:46.880 persistent legend that it was Roger Bacon's work, that it 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:51.000 did come from England. But um, the prevailing ideas about 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:55.000 the voyage manuscripts providence, um kind of drifted a little 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:58.920 further east, as we'll see. But um, when Rudolph the 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:01.640 Second bought the thing, uh, he thought it was Francis 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:05.160 Bacon and all this were we know, second hand, Chuck, like, 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:07.920 we don't. Like, there's no documents showing that Rudolph the 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:11.040 Second purchased this book. There's not a sales receipt, no 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.360 but there's something close that does kind of back it up. 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:18.880 Rudolph the Second had a dude um named Jacobus the 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:23.600 temper Nets I believe it's how you pronounced that, And 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:29.800 this was his um court pharmacists, basically his court botanist um. 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:32.000 And he was actually a really rich man. And Rudolf 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.400 the Second, out of an appreciation to this guy for 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:39.040 saving his life, gave him the Voyage Manuscript as a gift. 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:43.920 And this dude's watermark or seal or signature appears very 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.760 faintly in the Voyage Manuscript. So it definitely backs up 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.360 the idea that Rudolf the Second own this book at 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:52.720 one point in time, and it's entirely possible that he 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:55.839 did think Roger Bacon created it, but that doesn't mean 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:59.640 that Roger Bacon did create it. Uh So, for a 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:03.560 couple hundred years, it kind of, you know, wasn't on 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:09.120 the forefront of anyone's mind, basically disappeared until when here 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:13.840 we go, Wilfrid Voynage bought it in Italy, uh and 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:17.640 get said, I guess let's name it after me. Yeah, 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:21.480 Well they he in the manuscript became like very uh 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:25.120 pretty famous because he was tireless in trying to get 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:31.200 this thing cracked. This book has this really neat um 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.760 trait of like bringing people under its sway. You know, 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.520 it's well, it's a mystery, it is, and everybody loves 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.320 a mystery. It seems like it's possibly an impenetrable mystery, 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:43.120 which I think makes people want to crack it even 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:45.680 more sure because you get to be the one, you know, Yeah, 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:47.760 and you could change the name to the Josh Clark 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:52.280 Manuscript and say Voynage. Get bit, who's that? Do you 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.079 remember some company like bought the Sears Tower and tried 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:59.400 to change the name to their company's name for the tower, 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:01.440 and she, howgo do you learn that a few years ago? 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:04.319 Is it not the serious tower anymore? They tried to 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:07.480 change Everybody's like, no, we're still calling it the Sears Tower. 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:09.680 Oh Like even if they did change it, people are 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:11.760 still going to call it that. Yeah, gotcha. So I 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.040 think the same thing would happen with the Voyage Manuscript 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:16.800 even if I cracked it, right. That's like with a 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:20.320 lot of professional sports stadiums, I'll still refer to it 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:23.199 as the original cool name and not you know, right, 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:26.480 the r c A Dome or whatever. Although the new 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:28.679 stadiums are are they just don't even bother naming them. 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:33.560 They just go ahead and say who's got the most money? Right? Uh? 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:38.240 So voyage Uh, this manuscript he worked tirelessly. Uh and 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:41.880 it eventually ended up in modern times at Yale University 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:45.320 in nine where it still resides today. Right. So that's 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:47.719 just the story of it. And there's a lot more 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:49.840 detail to who have had their hands on this thing 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:52.520 over the years. Yeah, we'll talk about that, um right 0:11:52.559 --> 0:12:07.760 after this break. Big announcement, folks. It's called a podcast 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:11.280 event called The Message, that's all right. Thanks to ge 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.800 Podcast Theater and Panoply, there is an eight part series 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.679 out right now called The Message, and you can get 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:19.920 it wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, and you know what, 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.240 it's gonna blow your collective scientific minds because it's currently 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:27.240 rocking our worlds. So The Message follows the story of 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:30.839 Nicki Tomlin, who's a PhD in linguistics, right, that's right 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:33.800 at the University of Chicago, if I'm not mistaken, that's right. 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:36.920 And she's following a team of cryptologists, which really, if 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:40.000 you say cryptology, you've really got me hooked already. Their 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:42.760 research thank tank called Cipher and they're trying to dacode 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:46.240 a message received from outer space from seventy years ago. Yeah, 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:48.360 it's from outer space, we think. And if you're not 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:50.280 familiar with the story, well then I guess you'd better 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:52.600 go listen to the message. You can get it on iTunes, 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:55.360 you can get it on any of your podcast apps. 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:58.240 Just go search for the message and subscribe today. So 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:01.280 thanks to g E Podcast Theater and panopally for pushing 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:03.160 the boundaries of the medium. You guys are doing a 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:13.760 great job. Go subscribe to the message and listen today. 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.000 So Chucky, you're saying that um Voyage, it went from 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:22.520 Voyage ultimately to Yale, but in between that, like, Voytage 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:27.000 really kind of brought this manuscript into the four. Like 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:31.079 he he identified people who were professionals at cracking codes 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:35.560 and said, can you can you do this? The first 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:39.120 guy he went to was a University of Pennsylvania philosopher 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:43.680 UM and he had a really weird idea of what 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:50.000 the Voyage manuscript is really all about. Yeah, so if you, um, 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:53.240 if you look at the Voyage manuscript, the script is 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:58.320 like this weird really ornate lettering, right and it's actually 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:01.280 called gallows because a lot of it were like looks 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:05.960 a bit like a hangman's gallop, and um this uh. 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:10.959 University of Pennsylvania professor philosophy professor decided that it wasn't 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:15.120 the text itself that mattered. It was the little tiny 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:21.520 microscopic figures that the ink made inside each letter that 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:25.360 was the actual code. And I think Voytage like just 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:28.160 took his manuscript back and slowly backed out of the 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:30.760 room when the guys told him, man, yeah, he said, 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:34.840 they corresponded to Greek letters. Uh. And he actually said, 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:37.840 there's a message in here that confirms that it's Roger 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:41.600 Bacon inside the inc with these Greek letters. Uh. And 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:46.400 not only that, but Bacon well just some other theories 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:49.360 that's not even worth getting into, other theories that Bacon 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:53.800 hid in this inc. It was all untrue though, right. 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:56.840 Other people went back and said, oh, let us look 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:01.840 at these little weird um letters, microscopic letters that you're 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.840 seeing in the ink. Oh, well, that's just the ink 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:08.560 cracking as it dries, So you're nuts. Yeah, he I mean, 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:10.360 he tried to decrypt some of it, and it held 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:12.880 water for a little while, but it was only like 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:16.000 a very small part that was that even matched what 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:21.360 his decryption uh theory. So yeah, it didn't hold any water. 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:23.280 So that was the first guy who took a real 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:26.560 crack at it UM. The second people who did were 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:29.960 actually world War two codebreakers UM and the guy who 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:33.800 founded the n S a William Friedman who gets a 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:36.120 lot of the credit, but his wife is actually at 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.400 least as equal, if not as better, in in cryptography, 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:43.440 his wife Elizabeth, and they actually UM as World War 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:46.440 Two was waning, These people like broke the Japanese code right, 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:48.760 the Purple Code, I think is what it was called. 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:52.720 So they weren't like slouches as far as cryptography went. UM, 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:55.640 but they got together as the war was waning and 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:58.880 winding down and they weren't as needed any longer. They 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.120 got a bunch of their fellow cryptographers together and said, 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.120 let's work on the Voyage manuscript. And I guess they 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.560 probably figured that they would have it handled in short order. 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:11.040 That's not at all how it worked out. No, he 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:13.680 did not figure anything out. He gave up I think 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:16.080 he spent like thirty years working on it and then 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:18.600 finally declared that the thing was impossibly couldn't do it 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.880 and surrendered. I think it's how it was put. And 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:25.640 so after that this thing, once this guy and his 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:29.880 group said we can't do this, it kind of got 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:33.080 relegated to Yale for a while, and then the internet came. 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:36.240 That's right, So you want to talk about the book 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.440 itself a little bit, man, I would love to. The 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:42.640 book itself is two hundred and forty six pages, although 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.920 they think it is missing up to uh, you know, 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:52.000 fifty fifty five pages. Uh. I mean they don't know, 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:54.080 but they're guessing right, it could have been up to 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.720 two hundred and seventy three pages long. It's about nine 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:02.800 inches uh tall by six inches wide, and um, like 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.359 we said, it's on calf skin, which lends credence to 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.879 the fact that it's from the fourteen hundreds. It it 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:13.080 matches up with the carbon dating, so that makes some sense, 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:17.879 it does. They think that up to eight people worked 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:21.359 on the righting itself, and it is written from left 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:25.000 to right, which also lends credence to the fact that 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:30.000 could be European in nature. Makes sense, of course, uh, 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.199 although there are other theories that it is from the 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:36.159 eastern side of the world. But I don't know what 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:38.560 evidence they have on that. There's also the theories that 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:41.320 it's from the far west as well, if like Mexico 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:44.479 or Central Americas. Some people say that's right. Um. And 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:48.600 then so with the actual words themselves, the letters, there's 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:53.840 I think forty to forty characters in this weird alphabet 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:56.480 and understand, and that depends on who you ask. I've 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.280 seen as low as fifteen. Yeah, the highest I saw 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:01.800 is forty, but average I saw was thirty. Is what 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:06.120 people typically cite. Um, and these things, these letters are 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:09.880 put together to form what we would think of his words, 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:13.800 and then the words are put together without any punctuation, 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:18.800 and then occasionally are put into paragraphs. But for the 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:20.840 most part, it's just like world World World word, World 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:24.159 World Word. And then on almost every single page of 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:28.560 the codex itself, Um, there's an illustration of some sort 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:32.119 or another. Yeah, about two and twenty illustrations. Um. The 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:35.280 fact that it didn't have punctuation isn't a big deal. 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:37.919 Apparently that was pretty normal for the time, so that 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:42.159 doesn't really give anything away. Um. And it's also not 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:47.879 divided into chapters via text, but via illustrations. They believe 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:51.840 it might be divided into six different chapters, which are 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:54.320 a botanical this is where you're gonna find your weird 0:18:55.000 --> 0:19:01.080 unknown plants, um astronomical which uh zos, adiacal signs, and 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:04.000 celestial bodies stuff like that, which are and we should 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:07.640 say the zodiac symbols and um drawings of the zodiac 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.879 are the only things that are unquestionably recognizable in the 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.199 whole book, which makes it even stranger that it's not 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:19.639 just completely fantastic. There's also some stuff that's recognizable. There's 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:25.639 a biological chapter with naked ladies doing weird things and 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:30.240 bathtubs um or possibly water slides. It kind of looks 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:34.119 like in at least one a water slide. Yeah, I 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:35.919 don't know what you would call it a water slide. 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.159 Maybe it would be uh No, there's one there's a 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.400 Roman aqueduct or something. There's another one though that's like 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:45.320 it's a vertical drawing straight up and down. Uh And 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:49.199 there's like three women that are clearly like together in 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:51.480 the way that that three people would go down a 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:54.720 water slide at once. There's one a little further down 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:58.040 and she's like on her back going downward, and then 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:00.880 there's another woman at the bottom who's like basically splashed 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.840 down the almost spitting image of a water slide, a 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:09.120 green water slide. Uh. There's cosmological um with just these 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:14.840 weird circular patterns. It almost looks like um, like crop circles, 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:18.919 just weird designs that make no sense. Uh. And then 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:22.280 pharmaceutical this is where they have like different parts of 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.879 plants broken down and these like jars and things that 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:29.840 doctors you know, may have put things in right, which 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:31.919 they did at the time in the medieval era. This 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:35.320 is what it like a pharmacist, a doctor would have 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:38.919 stored their pharmacological herb zoom, which is why they're like, 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:43.199 this is the pharmacological section. And then finally, um, no 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:48.040 illustrations in the recipe section. Uh, it's just nothing but deliciousness. 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:50.200 I don't know how they know it was a recipe section. 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.760 Even so, they divided the book up into these six 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:57.720 chapters and they actually think that, um, remember the book 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:00.760 was loose pages at one point, what was it, I 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:05.680 think a hundred and twenty folded pages, um. And they 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:08.719 think that when the whoever bounded because it was bounding 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:13.760 goat skin of a younger age than the actual manuscript, 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.720 that whoever bounded, got the pages out of order here 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:19.879 or there, so that there's some pages that are in 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:25.359 the wrong chapter, but that roughly it's in the right order. Yeah, uh, 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:29.200 they have. Um. Another reason it might be Europeans because 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:31.919 the average length of the word is four or five letters, 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:35.919 although there are no two letter words and nothing with 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:41.040 more than ten characters, which is just more confounding. It 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:44.240 is because none of it is there's no consistency that 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:47.879 points exactly in one direction basically. Well, even more confounding 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:52.240 is there are examples of the same word used in 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:56.920 succession two or three times. Here there up to five times, 0:21:56.920 --> 0:21:59.439 so that's very odd. You don't see that very often, 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:01.560 and say English. Maybe they were just trying to make 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:05.920 a point. Times they're like I like this recipe very 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:11.320 very very very very much. You never know. Yeah, it 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:15.560 was written by Chainsaw and Dave from Summer School, who 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:19.159 remember that movie Summer School. They had to write like 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:21.560 a five word essay, so they used like the last 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:24.840 forty words where they like texas Chainsaw mask are very 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:28.800 very very battle trick. Yeah. So check. We've laid out 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:31.080 a lot of details here and we're not the first 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:33.960 person in the first people who notice these details, right, 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:38.520 Other people have and they really like studied them, especially 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:44.280 as the use of computing and linguistics has come together 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:46.800 in the twenty first century. And we will talk about 0:22:46.840 --> 0:23:15.000 all that jazz right after this. So chuck, there's weird 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:18.280 things like the same word being used up to five 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:22.240 times in a row. There's no punctuation, which apparently is 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:26.560 fairly normal, no word over ten letters. All this stuff 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:28.840 like it seems weird. But if you put that into 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:31.480 a computer with what we know about language these days, 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:35.520 you can spit out some pretty interesting conclusions about the 0:23:35.600 --> 0:23:39.160 Voyage Manuscript. One of the things that people have long said, 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:44.199 especially after William Friedman and his wife Elizabeth threw up 0:23:44.240 --> 0:23:47.159 their hands and said we're done after thirty years of 0:23:47.200 --> 0:23:49.879 studying this thing, a lot of people said, it's just 0:23:49.920 --> 0:23:52.280 a hoax. It doesn't mean anything. It's gibberish. The reason 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:55.280 that no one will ever be able to crack it 0:23:55.320 --> 0:23:59.520 is because it doesn't mean anything. And um, that's still 0:23:59.760 --> 0:24:03.280 a longstanding theory. Like you can find plenty of journal 0:24:03.359 --> 0:24:07.040 articles in um, you know, respectable pure of your journals 0:24:07.040 --> 0:24:09.520 about how this thing is hoaxed. And in fact, there 0:24:09.600 --> 0:24:12.399 was one a few years back that said, we found 0:24:12.400 --> 0:24:17.040 a Renaissance cipher key, which is used for encoding anything, 0:24:17.040 --> 0:24:19.600 but it was Renaissance era, and that if you took 0:24:19.680 --> 0:24:23.200 gibberish and put it into it, you could conceivably come 0:24:23.280 --> 0:24:26.520