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Cracking the Quicksilver Code

Posted by timothy on from the greatest-living-writer dept.

wka writes "Todd Garrison describes in detail how he solved the cryptographic puzzle promoting Neal Stephenson's forthcoming book Quicksilver, and the reward for his effort. Stephenson himself calls Garrison's story 'remarkable' because Garrison was completely unfamiliar with the system of writing (Real Character) used in the puzzle. Also, Stephenson notes that the system and its creator play roles in The Baroque Cycle."

2 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Wilkins' "universal" language is English? by Dashmon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What I think Real Character does is break up not the english language, but the ideas the words in that language represent. Those ideas exist in almost all languages for the largest part - so if you know what eacht "break up" means, you get a description of what the character means, in your own language.

    The system might, for example, have a way of saying "this word is a noun, it's something abstract, it's something postive", etc., and you might end up with something that can only mean "good". "Good" in itself is an english word, but if you know the sytem, you could still apply it using another language, and come up with the meaning of the character in your language, or, if you're advanced enough, you might be able to understand the meaning without having to translate (that's how really knowing a language works - you know what is ment by words without having to think about/translate them).

    That way, this system'd allow for people who speak totally different languages to understand eachother by describing the meaning of words using a universal system. At least, that's what I think it does. Can anyone confirm?

  2. More crypto fun! by bastion · · Score: 5, Interesting

    CIA Kryptos Sculpture

    Located in the northwest corner of the New Headquarters Building courtyard is a sculpture by artist James Sanborn entitled "Kryptos." Dedicated on November 3, 1990, the theme of this sculpture is "intelligence gathering." "Kryptos" incorporates native American materials such as wood and metal. A piece of petrified wood supports a large S-shaped copper screen that looks like a piece of paper coming out of a computer printer. On the "paper" are inscribed several enigmatic messages, each written in a different code.

    CIA Website

    ABC News Article