Cracking the Voynich Code 2022 weekly progress

Weekly Progress

Week 1

Reilly

• Background research into work of previous students

Greg

• Background research into academic background of the Voynich Manuscript

Week 2

Reilly

• First meeting with supervisor
• Begin planning project and first deliverable: Project Management Plan

Greg

• First meeting with supervisor
• Begin planning project and first deliverable: Project Management Plan

Week 3

Reilly

• Set up GitHub repository
• Set up Dropbox for shared documents
• Expand background and objectives sections of Project Management Plant
• Create Work Breakdown Structure

Greg

• Create Project Management Plan
• Detail project background, objectives, deliverables of plan
• Create project Gantt chart

Week 4

Reilly

• Setup Wiki
• Plan and allocate first body of work
• Start designing text formatter

Greg

• Plan and allocate first body of work

Week 5

Reilly

• Explore transcript sources and EVA character meanings
• Complete formatter design and write up GitHub readme justifying design
• Develop basic text formatter

Greg

• Learn Git and GitHub

Week 6

Reilly

• Solidify upcoming tasks

Greg

• Outline new plan for upcoming tasks
• Preliminary reading for transcription automation

Break 1

Reilly

• Started Introduction and relevant literature review and for the report
• Investigation into potential other approaches for differentating numbers and prose

Greg

• Psuedo code for HMM approach
• Implemented code to determine transition and emission probabilities
• Started write-up for relevant literature review and methodology sections

Break 2

Reilly

• Too busy with assignments so little progress was made this week

Greg

• Continued work on characteriser code
• Continued work on HMM code, currently experimenting with online libraries but can switch to a manual approach

Week 7

Reilly

• Naive anagram approach using word permutations (9+ hour runtime)
• More sensible anagram approach using character matching

Greg

• Too busy with assignments so little progress was made this week

Week 8

Reilly

• Improved anagram code by filtering duplicate entries and adding character profiling (alongside word profiling)
• Ran anagram code on common European language translations of UNDHR

Greg

• Started write up of literature review
• Continued work on HMM code, verifying parts of program to ensure correct probabilities are calculated
• Additional reading on automating transcription

Week 9

Reilly

• Ran anagram on botanical texts in multiple European languages
• Got initial promising results showing numbers as anagramming more frequently than letters
• Started writing more detail in progress report

Greg

• Completed frequency analysis and characteriser program with verification
• Written basic code for matching the features of two images
• Continued writting on the progress report
• Slightly restructred HMM design with aims to implement next week

Week 10

Reilly

• Completed Progress Report Draft

Greg

• Completed Progress Report Draft
• Restructured the planned design for automatic transcription

Week 11

Reilly

• Completed Progress Report

Greg

• Completed Progress Report

Week 12

Reilly

• Fixed progress report in preparation for final
• Planned seminar
• Started creation of seminar slides

Greg

• Fixed progress report in preparation for final
• Planned seminar
• Started creation of seminar slides

Week 13

Reilly

• Seminar Preparation

Greg

• Seminar Preparation

Semester 1 SWOT Week

Reilly

• Seminar Presentation
• Exam Revision

Greg

• Seminar Presentation
• Exam Revision

Exam Week 1 and 2

Reilly

• Exams

Greg

• Exams

Break Week 1 and 2

Reilly

• Break

Greg

• Break

Break Week 3

Reilly And Greg

• Planned work to be completed for semester
• Designed implementation of Entropy for ASCII Analysis

Week 1

Reilly

• Analyzed file format of manuscript transcription
• Redesigned formatter to be more extendable and user friendly
• Began writing code for new formatter

Greg

• Investigated different models for automatic transliteration
• Modified existing concept

Week 2

Reilly

• Continued writing formatter code

Greg

• Hmm calculates probabilities for the relevant matrices as expected
• Design for PCA approach

Week 3

Reilly

• Completed formatter
• Ran verification tests

Greg

• assignments this week, no progress

Week 4

Reilly

• Altered formatter to handle the odd text elements of the VM

Greg

• assignments and test this week, no progress

Week 5

Reilly

• Modified frequency analyser to support both normal texts and the VM

Greg

Week 6

Reilly

• Modified anagrammer to support both normal texts and the VM

Greg

• Integrated current HMM code with interface
• Added support to train based on multiple texts

Week 7

Reilly

• Restructured codebase files for easier use and less repetition of text files

Greg

• Concept for possible entropy approach investigated designed
• Continued work on PCA program

Week 8

Reilly

• Planned corpus with Greg
• Downloaded all corpus texts and formatted by hand

Greg

• Started Entropy program

Break 1

Reilly

• Started Analysing frequency and anagrams of all corpus texts and the VM

Greg

Break 2

Reilly

• Completed analyses

Greg

• No progress this week

Week 9

Reilly

• Altered figure colors for different languages
• Re-run analyses in new colours

Greg

• Worked on Entropy Program
• HMM program was validated but it was not generating any reasonable results. Attempts were made to program slightly such as using different path-finding algorithms
• Attempts to make HMM work were not effective. This specific approach is not effective

Week 10

Reilly

Greg

• Started work on RCI program
• Continued work on entropy program
• Started work on final report

Week 11

Reilly

• Worked on Final Report

Greg

• Worked on Final Report
• Finished Entropy program and collected results
• Finished WRI program and collected results

Week 12

Reilly

• Finished final report and prepare for Ingenuity

Greg

• Finished final report and prepare for Ingenuity