Da Vinci, Dreadnought, Jackie Fisher
- From: "Jack Linthicum" <jacklinthicum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 29 Apr 2006 03:13:11 -0700
Forty-two boldface italicized letters in 71 page text of Da Vinci
plagerism judge's text yield the Naval text of "Jackie Fisher who are
you Dreadnought." The judge is a big Jackie Fisher fan, just as well,
he could have been a Zbiegnew Brzezinski fan. The saddest part is that
a reporter, Ben Hoyle, saved his job by solving it.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002960380_davinci29.html
Two decipher judge's coded message in "Da Vinci" copyright case
By Tom Hundley
Chicago Tribune
LONDON - Judge's secret Da Vinci code cracked! Reporter's job saved!
Admiral of the Fleet honored!
But who got there first?
A London lawyer and a reporter for The Times newspaper both claimed
credit for deciphering the coded message hidden in a judge's recent
ruling in "The Da Vinci Code" copyright case.
Dan Tench, the lawyer, was the first to notice the odd sequence of 42
boldfaced italicized letters interspersed throughout the 71-page text
of Judge Peter Smith's ruling.
The first 10 spelled out "Smithy Code." The rest were gibberish. It was
enough to send this Sudoku-crazed nation into frenzy.
The Daily Mail newspaper offered 1,000 pounds ($1,820) to the first
person who could crack the code.
Times reporter Ben Hoyle, who was assigned to the task by his
newspaper, dropped by the courthouse and submitted a note to the judge
pleading for a clue.
"He e-mailed me back during the lunchtime break suggesting: 'Try letter
substitution letter by letter applying the Fibonacci Sequence (in
correct form),' " Hoyle wrote.
The judge also told the reporter, "If you can't solve it now, you
should be sacked."
As devotees of the Dan Brown novel will recall, the Fibonacci Sequence
is a string of numbers in which each number is the sum of the two that
precede it, thus 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21.
Cracking the code requires one to repeatedly apply the Fibonacci
Sequence to the string of coded letters.
"After a few hours of excruciating scribbling and a brief consultation
with Ray Keene, The Times chess correspondent, I finally decoded the
message," Hoyle wrote.
So did Tench. Working with two other lawyers from the Olswang law firm,
they also cracked the judge's encoded message: "Jackie Fisher who are
you Dreadnought."
For the clueless, Jackie Fisher is Adm. John Arbuthnot Fisher, whose
remarkable naval career spanned 60 years and who is perhaps best known
for modernization of the British navy and the introduction of the
Dreadnought class battleship.
He died in 1920.
Judge Smith said he is a big Jackie Fisher fan.
In an e-mail to reporters, Smith said he planted the code "for my own
pleasure" and didn't expect anyone to notice.
He also added that the answer "has nothing to do with the case" in
which he ruled that "The Da Vinci Code" author Brown had not improperly
taken material from an earlier nonfiction book, "The Holy Blood and the
Holy Grail."
.
- Prev by Date: Re: IJN and sound velocity profile
- Next by Date: Re: IJN and sound velocity profile
- Previous by thread: Re: What if Hillary is elected President
- Next by thread: "Unlovely CSS Arkansas poorly built but valiant"
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
