Computing & AI · the experiment
Look for the trace of language
A book nobody can read, two rival explanations, a test that reads not a single word. Four questions, from beginner to expert, on what the authors measure.
1 · Place the manuscript
Beginner
On word-pair replication, where does the manuscript stand against the 28 texts in 16 languages?
2 · Count the miscopied words
The manuscript holds about 38,000 words. For a code of abbreviated Latin to show as little word order as it does, two words in five must have been miscopied.
Intermediate
How many words would the scribe have had to miscopy?
3 · Predict a word code's score
A word code replaces each word of a text with a code word. Picture an original text whose word pairs replicate strongly, enciphered by a scribe who miscopies almost no words.
Expert
What replication score does the enciphered text get?
4 · Search for the hidden message
The authors planted messages among the first words of paragraphs, then searched for them. When each letter is always written as the same word, the words side by side, every message of 500 letters is found.
Expert
And a 500-letter message in which each letter is written with several different words?
Trace measured
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