Galileo's 394 year old unsolved cryptogram / anagram

I have this posted over at ID.com but there has been no takers I though posting it here might produce more feed back, and it would be cool if ATS could crack this, it would go down in the history books

Anyone good with cryptograms I�m not. I�m limited to crossword puzzles
The one below is 394 years old and unsolved from what I have read, any takers

R LYHVIEVW GSV SRTSVHG KOZMVG (GLYV) GSIVV-YLWRVW

If you can solve this cryptogram, you will have solved one that is 389 years old. It was written by Galileo Galilei and referred to what he thought he saw when he first looked at Saturn with a telescope.

Saturn was known by the ancient Babylonians, but it was not until 1610 when Galileo turned his telescope to the planet that the glorious rings became known. Galileo wasn't at all sure what he had discovered, but whatever it was, he wanted credit for it. Since he also did not want to be ridiculed if he was wrong about what he thought he saw, he wrote a note to himself in the form of an anagram.
November sixth marks the day when Saturn reaches opposition

Opposition occurs when a planet beyond the Earth is opposite the Sun with the Earth in between, the three bodies forming a straight line. It's a great time to see the ringed planet and to learn a bit more about this fascinating world. Saturn is perhaps the most fascinating place in the solar system, and the only planet that could float!

www.starryskies.com...




[edit on 22-9-2004 by Sauron]

It'd be in Italian then, no?

Originally posted by Gazrok
It'd be in Italian then, no?

good point most likely or Latin

[edit on 21-9-2004 by Sauron]

it's gone unsolved for close to 400 years. I'd say it's a safe bet that it won't be solved any time soon.

its a bunch of letters mixed up

I bumped this back up because it interests me and if ATS could do it, it would be quite the feather in ATS�s hat.
In any event, I haven�t a clue when it comes to this sort of stuff but if some one could point out some good free cryptogram software I�m willing to try.

"Drink more ovalteen!"

okay here is a hint ..... (GLYV) ....-.......

(GLYV) he is making a comment to himself to (Share not ie Awou)

G=A
L=W
Y=O
V=U

Share not: awou (hesb.),


www.google.com...

Alternatives in EW
Only the alternatives affecting the radical are quoted; for the alternatives concerning the termination, to see the regular conjugation (p. ). Li�g. subj. imp. In addition to the forms above: dj' avahe etc or dj' e�rihe etc or dj' e�he etc. - Inf.: ave�r (verv., malm.) - Ind. pr.: your-front (condr., malm., Ardenne) - Share not: awou (hesb.), yu (condr.), oyou (verv.)

I could probably solve the rest but I am not good at French.

A veure si aneuu a Girona i torneu a anar amb el Ricardo

What does Aneuu mean in this sentence ???

G=A
S=N
I=E
V=U
V=U

Here they are talking about a type of plant. I would suppose that Gall. is thinking to himself what Saturn reminds him of, or since he is saying to himself "share not" for the plant "aneuu" is like something... its like a note about something specfic about this plant. Maybe it only flowers at night ???

Vous avez s�lectionn� le code : ANEUU
Votre recherche donne les r�sultats suivants :
Pour visualiser les caract�ristiques d'une plante, cliquer sur la ligne correspondante.
COMMELINACEAE
Aneilema
umbrosum
(Vahl) Kunth
subsp.
umbrosum

Or he is saying Plant of Name YLWRVW. Instead of using Aneuu to name a "plant" he is using Aneuu to name a PLANET. Whom he called YLWRVW.



.... (share not) Planet [ylwrvw]



[edit on 22-9-2004 by robertfenix]

[edit on 22-9-2004 by robertfenix]

[edit on 22-9-2004 by robertfenix]

Now that we have powerful computers. We just need to get some good software. It may take a while to go through all the possible combinations but evantually it would be found. Right?

robertfenix:
If you can crack Galileo Galilei anagram, then by all means,
I would like to see it decoded and you would be the first person in 400 years to do it

www.abovetopsecret.com...

That's really difficult, because we miss the source (a copy of the original document, if it's hand-written, maybe the clue is in the calligraphy, like often in scientific documents of this period). Also, it's a bit too short for searching for patterns, but we can find some :

R LYHVIEVW GSV SRTSVHG KOZMVG (GLYV) GSIVV-YLWRVW

In fact, the "GSV" / "GSIVV" pattern must be an expansion of the same term.

That's probably common syntaxs forms, like declinaisons, if the text is written in latin.

R LYHVIEVW GSV SRTSVHG KOZMVG (GLYV) GSIVV-YLWRVW

The R=A or E, refering to a position (A/E mean "from").

If the glyph is authentic, it's probably a record of the saturn position taken by galileo.

[EDITED]
Helping ressources :

Latin grammar :
www.nd.edu...

English/latin translator (work 1 time on 2 attempts) :
www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk...



[edit on 23-9-2004 by Nans DESMICHELS]

Maybe Gallileo threw a bunch of letters together so that people 400 years later would be knocking their head on a desk trying to figure it out.

Nans DESMICHELS
It's all Greek to me I havn't a clue when it comes to this sort of stuff

Originally posted by Sauron
Nans DESMICHELS

It's all Greek to me I havn't a clue when it comes to this sort of stuff

Err... I'm sorry sauron but I'm skeptical about the authenticity of this annagram : It's too easy or it's too hard.

Too easy because these few letters didn't get decode in 400 years.
Too hard because it can be absolutely anything.

I would watch at the source (the document) were thsi cryptogram was found, or at least have more informations about the source.

Actually, I haven't tryied to translate it because if it seems to be a sentence with the indications of location of something (it begin with "From" and seems to continue with "to".

I found this website www.anagramsite.com, but it didn't give any solutions.

Also, the anagram dosn't look like it has enough vowels to make up a valid sentence, even for Italian or Latin.

Plus anagrams can't be that difficult to decode, I mean, it's just the letters all jumbled up, right?

Originally posted by StationsCreation
I found this website www.anagramsite.com, but it didn't give any solutions.

Also, the anagram dosn't look like it has enough vowels to make up a valid sentence, even for Italian or Latin.

Plus anagrams can't be that difficult to decode, I mean, it's just the letters all jumbled up, right?

It's not an only anagram but also cryptogram. This mean that you need to itterate the letters to be able to decrypt the code.

Originally posted by robertfenix

A veure si aneuu a Girona i torneu a anar amb el Ricardo

Bob : I don't understand exactly how you processed to obtain this tranlation but :

Girona is a city of spain. ( www.turismegirona.com... )
Maybe Ricardo was a spanish friend of Galileo...


The galileo cryptogram is mentioned in a Jules VERNES's book :"Journey to the interior of the Earth".

"No doubt," I ventured to reply, "but what interest would he have in thus hiding so marvellous a discovery?"

"Why? Why? How can I tell? Did not Galileo do the same by Saturn? We shall see. I will get at the secret of this document, and I will neither sleep nor eat until I have found it out."

www.jules-verne.co.uk...

Galileo published, in Latin, of the results of his observations in Sidereus Nuncius (the messenger of stars) in the scientific language of the time.
He revealed the mountains of the Moon there, the Venus phases, the catalogue of the new stars which he is the first to be seen, Jupiter satellites.
But he wanted that his discoveries are distilled very slowly and especially, unquestionable being that paternity cannot be withdrawn to him.
For that, it coded its revelations with anagrams.
It was very current at the time.
An anagram is a word or a sentence reordered starting from the letters of another word or another sentence: language and glanage, virtual and television set, attention and temptation.
That pricked the curiosity of the readers and increased the impact of the discovery.
The time which its sentences put its readers to decode, enabled him to refine the observation of it, while being certain to preserve paternity of it.
In addition, the discovery was reserved for an elite able to decipher its message.
But sometimes, this method had its limits while taking along the reader on false tracks because, by definition, the thing discovered is unknown of all, which limits the reflexion. Its method was complicated.
He's discoveries are hiden behind 2 screens.
It changed the direction into interposing mythological periphrases and then it superimposed 3 isotopies (construction of the direction): the immediate direction, the mythological direction resulting from permutation of the letters, the astronomical direction in substituent the names planets by those of goddesses.
Moreover, it added a complication by hiding the mythological direction in periphrases.
For example for Venus, it spoke about "the mother of the loves".
For the Moon, it was a question of the island of Delos where she was honoured under the name of Cynthie.
Why did decrease the chances to find its anagrams because the metaphors, periphrases, etc..., being able to indicate celestial bodies, are numerous
At the time of discovered Saturn's rings, he will write desperate:
"I cant say nothing about a so surprising case".
It suggested that Saturn was to have arms or handles which push mysteriously and disappear periodically. (

)
It coded its discovery with the anagram following which it sent to several people: will smaismrmilmepoetalevmibunenugttaviras.
It had added an additional complication there by joining all the letters mixed in an illegible sequence, where by-Ci emerged, by-there, of the groups which suggested a word (is, poeta, to vir).
It forwarded it in Johannes Kepler, which lived Prague.
Kepler decoded the following sentence:
salvo umbistineum geminatum Martia proles.
This mean, in latin :
Hello, double shield protection, "sons" of Mars. (or creation of mars)

Kepler supposed that Galileo had discovered 2 satellites ("double protection "and "sons") of Mars (the shield).
Most astonishing it is that this error hid a reality which will be discovered only in August 1877 by Asaph Hall: the presence of the 2 satellites of Mars: Phobos and Deimos.
Kepler forwarded the anagram to the English Thomas Harriot, who with his friends, tried to solve the enigma.
Here some of the found solutions:

Semi tantum Jupiter laus gloria summe brans me Montibus and silva variis martem magus plenum Ignem lunarem in sat.

Parvum and Mobilem made Kepler and Harriot believe that the principle that Galileo was speaking could be only about astronomical observations.
They thus scanned for the names of known celestial bodies (Jupiter, Mars, the Moon). They tried to mix the letters in the search of a direction hidden by ordering the words to obtain a grammatically correct sentence.

Research related to some possible permutations among the 36! (factorial) that is to say:
36! = 371 993 326 678 990 121 746 799 944 815 083 520 000 000 possibilities But, here the key of the mystery was reveled by Galileo later:
Altissimum planetam tergeminum observavi
Translation : I observed that the highest planet is "tri-twin."

Galileo prevented speaking about Saturn that it called "the highest planet".
He died without knowing that he had discovered the Saturn's rings in his small glasses.

Extracted from : "Galileo : from the anagram to the cryptogram"
Author : Fernand Hallyn
University of Ghent
published on the site of the Institute of Research on the Teaching of Mathematics of Lille (in french) :
www.univ-lille1.fr...

Published : April 27, 2004
ISBN: 2020632497

Translation by the poster with the help of Altavista BabelFish translator.

[edit on 8-10-2004 by Nans DESMICHELS]

Parhaps Ovalteen has a time machine and planted this advertiment in the past. Or maybe not.

I was just reading some old threads of mine and thought I would bump this, after all we have some new fresh minds on the board who might find it interesting