Voynich Manuscript

When, in 1639, the Prague citizen Georg Baresch wrote to the famous Jesuit scientist Athanasius Kircher that he owned a mysterious book which was written in an unknown script and profusely illustrated with pictures of plants, stars and alchemical secrets, he thought that Kircher would be able to decipher this book for him. He could not have guessed that not only was Kircher unable to do this, but that a long row of vastly more expert codebreakers were equally going to fail. The book has come down to us and even now, more than 360 years later, not a single word from its 234 pages can be understood. 

Nor was Baresch the first to attempt in vain to read the MS. Before him, various scientists which the Holy Roman emperor Rudolf II collected at his court may well have tried their hand.

The book is now known as the Voynich manuscript (MS), after its (re)discoverer in 1912. The discovery of the MS by Wilfrid Voynich is best told by himself:

In 1912 [...] I came across a most remarkable collection of preciously illuminated manuscripts. For many decades these volumes had lain buried in the chests in which I found them in an ancient castle in Southern Europe where the collection had apparently been stored in consequence of the disturbed political condition of Europe in the early part of the nineteenth century. 

[...] 

While examining the manuscripts, with a view to the acquisition of at least a part of the collection, my attention was especially drawn by one volume. It was such an ugly duckling compared with the other manuscripts, with their rich decorations in gold and colors, that my interest was aroused at once. I found that it was written entirely in cipher. Even a necessarily brief examination of of the vellum upon which it was written, the calligraphy, the drawings and the pigments suggested to me as the origin the latter part of the thirteenth century. The drawings indicated it to be an encyclopedic work on natural philosophy. 

[...] 

the fact that this was a thirteenth century manuscript in cipher convinced me that it must be a work of exceptional importance, and to my knowledge the existence of a manuscript of such an early date written entirely in cipher was unkown, so I included it among the manuscripts which I purchased from this collection. 

[...] 

two problems presented themselves - the text must be unravelled and the history of the manuscript must be traced. 

[...] 

It was not until some time after the manuscript came into my hands that I read the document bearing the date 1665 (or 1666) (2) , which was attached to the front cover. 

[...] 

This document, which is a letter from Joannes Marcus Marci to Athanasius Kircher making a gift of the manuscript to him, is of great significance

The Prague doctor and scientist Johannes Marcus Marci had been a faithful correspondent to Athanasius Kircher for over 25 years, and shortly before his death he sent the MS to Kircher. In the letter (3) he explains how he had inherited the MS from a close friend, who had tried to decipher this MS till the very end of his life, and had also asked for Kircher's help. He further explains that he learned from one 'Dr. Raphael' how the MS was originally bought by the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II of Bohemia (1552-1612) for 600 ducats, and that it was believed that the MS was written by Roger Bacon, (the Franciscan friar who lived from 1214 to 1294).

Another early owner of the MS was identified by Voynich when, on the lower margin of the first folio, under special illumination, the erased signature of Jacobus de Tepenec was found. Tepenec was one of Emperor Rudolf's courtiers and the director of his botanical gardens and he must have owned the manuscript between 1608, when he received his title "de Tepenec", and 1622, when he died. The MS has changed hands several times, and apart from some minor gaps in our knowledge its path from the court of Rudolf II to its final resting place, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University, can now be traced fairly accurately.

Voynich took the MS to the United States and started a campaign to have its text deciphered. He provided photographic copies to a number of experts. The MS became famous when, in the 1920's, William Romaine Newbold proposed a spectacular decipherment with which he meant to prove that it was indeed written by Roger Bacon, and that Bacon had not only dreamt of, but actually built microscopes and telescopes. When this 'solution' of the MS was disproven by John M. Manly in 1931, the MS gradually became a pariah in world of mediaeval studies. In the 1940's and 1960's the eminent cryptanalyst William F. Friedman made several valiant attempts at deciphering the MS, aided by groups of experts, but also he did not find any solution.

In 1961 the book was bought by H. P. Kraus (a New York book antiquarian) for the sum of $24,500. He later valued it at $160,000 but was unable to find a buyer. Finally, in 1969 he donated it to Yale University, where it remains to date at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Though officially registered as MS 408, it is still best known as the Voynich Manuscript. 

In 2009 the parchment of the MS was radio-carbon dated, resulting in a date range of 1404-1438 with 95% confidence.

Mpemba Effect

Water may be one of the most abundant compounds on Earth, but it is also one of more mysterious. For example, like most liquids it becomes denser as it cools. But unlike them, it reaches a state of maximum density at 4°C and then becomes less dense before it freezes.
In solid form, it is less dense still, which is why standard ice floats on water. That’s one reason why life on Earth has flourished— if ice were denser than water, lakes and oceans would freeze from the bottom up, almost certainly preventing the kind of chemistry that makes life possible.
Then there is the strange Mpemba effect, named after a Tanzanian student who discovered that a hot ice cream mix freezes faster than a cold mix in cookery classes in the early 1960s. (In fact, the effect has been noted by many scientists throughout history including Aristotle, Francis Bacon and René Descartes.)
The Mpemba effect is the observation that warm water freezes more quickly than cold water. The effect has been measured on many occasions with many explanations put forward. One idea is that warm containers make better thermal contact with a refrigerator and so conduct heat more efficiently. Hence the faster freezing. Another is that warm water evaporates rapidly and since this is an endothermic process, it cools the water making it freeze more quickly.
None of these explanations are entirely convincing, which is why the true explanation is still up for grabs.
Today Xi Zhang at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and a few pals provide one. These guys say that the Mpemba paradox is the result of the unique properties of the different bonds that hold water together.
What’s so odd about the bonds in water? A single water molecule consists of a relatively large oxygen atom joined to two smaller hydrogen atoms by standard covalent bonds.
But put water molecules together and hydrogen bonds also begin to play an important role. These occur when a hydrogen in one molecule comes close the oxygen in another and bonds to it.
Hydrogen bonds are weaker than covalent bonds but stronger than the van der Waals forces that geckos use to climb walls.
Chemists have long known that they are important. For example, water’s boiling point is much higher than other liquids of similar molecules because hydrogen bonds hold it together.
But in recent years, chemists have become increasingly aware of more subtle roles that hydrogen bonds can play. For example, water molecules inside narrow capillaries form into chains held together by hydrogen bonds. This plays an important role in trees and plants where water evaporation across a leaf membrane effectively pulls a chain of water molecules up from the roots.
Now Xi and co say hydrogen bonds also explain the Mpemba effect. Their key idea is that hydrogen bonds bring water molecules into close contact and when this happens the natural repulsion between the molecules causes the covalent O-H bonds to stretch and store energy.
But as the liquid warms up, it forces the hydrogen bonds to stretch and the water molecules sit further apart. This allows the covalent molecules to shrink again and give up their energy. The important point is that this process in which the covalent bonds give up energy is equivalent to cooling.
In fact, the effect is additional to the conventional process of cooling. So warm water ought to cool faster than cold water, they say. And that’s exactly what is observed in the Mpemba effect.
These guys have calculated the magnitude of the additional cooling effect and show that it exactly accounts for the observed differences in experiments that measure the different cooling rates of hot and cold water.
Voila! That’s an interesting insight into the complex and mysterious properties of water, which still give chemists sleepless nights.
But while Xi and co’s idea is convincing, it is not quite the theoretical slam dunk that many physicists will require to settle the question. That’s because the new theory lacks predictive power—at least in this paper.
Xi and co need to use their theory to predict a new property of water that conventional thinking about water does not. For example, the shortened covalent bonds might give rise to some measurable property of the water that would not otherwise be present. The discovery and measurement of this property would be the coup de grâce that their theory needs.
So while these guys may well have solved the riddle of Mpemba effect, they will probably need to work a little harder to convince everyone. Nevertheless, interesting stuff!

Secret society founded by the Indian Mauryan Emperor Ashoka

In the 1923 novel by Talbot Mundy named The Nine Unknown, he proposed a secret society founded by the Indian Mauryan Emperor Ashoka around 270 BC to protect and develop knowledge that if falls into the wrong hands would be dangerous for the humanity. He entrusted nine people with protecting the nine books of secret knowledge.

The nine books entrusted to these nine men is said to contain information on topics ranging from psychological warfare, physiology, microbiology, alchemy, communication including communication with extraterrestrials, gravity and antigravity devices, cosmology including hyperspace and time travel, light and sociology. Each of the Nine is supposedly responsible for guarding and improving a single book. Among conspiracy theorists, the Nine Unknown is often cited as one of the oldest and most powerful secret societies in the world. Unusually for the conspiracy subculture, the image of the group is largely though not entirely benign. Theosophists also believe the Nine to be a real organization that is working for the good of the world.

Three caves in Qinghai province of China

In the remote Qinghai Province there is a mystery that has yet to be satisfactorily explained, and is off limits by Chinese government. Near the summit of Mt. Baigong stands a 60 m pyramid. At the base of this pyramid are three caves. In these caves, elsewhere around the mountain and nearby Lake Toson run lines and lines of what look like old lead based pipes. Local countrymen have known about the pipes for centuries. Two of the three caves at the base of the pyramid have collapsed and are inaccessible. Only one cave remains accessible. Oddly, in the roof of the cave a pipe 40 cm in diameter bumps out on an angle. Another pipe of the same diameter is seen on the floor of the cave, disappearing into the ground. There are more pipes outside the cave at ground level that range in diameters from 2 cm to 10 cm. More pipes are scattered around lake and on lake floor. Initial analysis of the pipe material found it to be indeed incredibly old, and consisting of iron oxide, silicon dioxide, calcium oxide and the other 8% of unidentifiable content. Similar pipe structures have been discovered in Louisiana. These are deemed to be naturally formed by some scientists. No more official information has been released on this subject by China.

Dyatlov Pass Incident

At the end of January 1959, a Russian cross-country ski team ventured into the Northern Ural Mountains. Intended expedition was a week-long skiing adventure to reach Oroton Mountain in Urals. They left Vizhai (the last inhabited settlement far north) on January 27th, but never came back alive. The trouble wasn't that the team disappeared. It was the state they were in when they were found. The campsite was abandoned with tent torn from inside. Searchers followed the recent footprints that led to the edge of nearby woods where they discovered the remains of a fire and two dead bodies. The first two bodies discovered were found shoeless and only wearing their underwear. Nearby the searchers found three more bodies that appeared to have been trying to return to camp at that time. It wasn't until two months later that authorities would find the remaining four bodies in a ravine under 4 m of snow quite a bit further from the camp. Two of the hikers had skull damage, two had major chest fractures, and one woman was missing her tongue. They had no external wounds or injuries. There were no foreign footprints and there was no sign of a struggle. What’s puzzling was that some of the victims were wearing each others’ clothes. Examination concluded six of the group members died of hypothermia and three of fatal injuries. Forensic radiation tests had shown high doses of radioactive contamination on the clothes of some of the victims. Medical examiner finally concluded that the group members all died because of a “compelling unknown force.”