“A progressive key on a table rebuilt from the puzzle's words”
Experiment 11 killed progressive keys at periods 1 to 25 and 31 to 51 under the standard and KRYPTOS alphabets. Here the plain and cipher alphabets are the keyword mixings of every vocabulary word; the key alphabet drops out of the consistency test. Periods 1 to 30, steps 1 to 25, the per-repeat form.
Experiment 11 tried the trick where the secret wordthe secret word The word or string a cipher needs besides the method. slides one notch further each time it repeats, and found that no short word works with the sculpture's own table. The tablethe table The right-hand half of the sculpture, 26 rows of the alphabet each shifted one place further, starting from the word KRYPTOS. could have been built from another word, which changes the sums. So we rebuild the table from every word the puzzle knowsthe puzzle's words A list of 62 words tied to the sculpture: the earlier secret words, place names, the names of the people involved, the words in the Morse code, and the themes Sanborn has named. and try every word length up to 30 and every slide again.
Words in the margin are defined on the glossary page.
1.1
The method at work
The carved letters go in at the top; the reading comes out at the bottom.
the fold
A progressive key shifts the whole secret word by a fixed step each time it repeats. Folding the message into rows of the key's length lines up the places that share a slot.
slot 8
Drawn for the ABSCISSA table and the sculpture's, period 13, step 2: undoing the steps, places 22 and 74 should give the same base letter, and they give 4 and 5.
the bound
8,930,250 combinations: periods 1 to 24 die under every table pair and step; 25 to 30 survive at chance rates, and no puzzle word fits what they force.
2
Best candidate against the known letters
This experiment produced no candidate: the search ruled everything out before a full text was built. Its product is the bounded negative in section 7.
3
Walkthrough, by hand
Redo the method on a few letters with pencil and paper.
Build the alphabet from ABSCISSA: ABSCIDEFGHJKLMNOPQRTUVWXYZ, and use it for the message; keep KRYPTOS for the carved letters; Vigenere.
Period 13, step 2: position 22 is E, index 5 in the ABSCISSA alphabet; carved F is index 11 in KRYPTOS; the key index is 6; position 22 lies in repeat 1 (positions 14 to 26), so subtract one step: base index 4 for slot 8.
Position 74, the K of CLOCK, is repeat 5, slot 8: its key index minus five steps must also give
If not, period 13 step 2 is dead for this pair of alphabets.
Try every step and every pair; a survivor gives a pattern of base letters with blanks to slide the puzzle's words across.
the worksheet: the first steps by hand, on squared paper
4
Worked example, generated
The same steps run by the code on the real letters.
plain alphabet ABSCISSA/keyword ABSCIDEFGHJKLMNOPQRTUVWXYZ; cipher KRYPTOS; Vigenere; period 13, step 2
pos plain carved key index repeat base index slot
22 E F 6 1 4 8
23 A L 17 1 15 9
24 S R 25 1 23 10
64 B N 18 4 10 11
74 K K 15 5 5 8
positions 22 and 74 share slot 8: their base indices must agree, or period 13 step 2 is dead for this pair.
5
Hypothesis, for a cryptanalyst
Family, key space, the constraint under test, and the clues it reads.
The Trithemius progression on a keyword alphabet is the classical combination the manuals teach (C5): key index at position i is base[i mod P] plus d times the repeat number. Experiment 11 swept it under 24 conventions; the consistency test depends only on the plain and cipher alphabets, so the 63 x 63 keyword-mixed pairs from the vocabulary are the untested corner. For each pair, mode, period 1-30 and step 1-25, every crib forces the base letter of its slot after the progression is subtracted; a slot forced two ways kills the combination. About 9 million combinations, 24 checks each, with early exit. Survivors at periods up to 30 have their forced base fragment matched against the vocabulary and K1-K3 windows. Bounds: complete for this pool, these periods and steps, the per-repeat form; the per-letter form and periods above 30 are not covered.
6
Prediction
Written before the run; the result decides it.
Periods 1 to 25 die at every step under every alphabet pair, as they did under the sculpture's alphabets; a scatter of chance survivors appears at 26 to 30. No forced fragment matches a word; zero candidates pass.
7
Method
Build the alphabet pool.
For each plain and cipher alphabet and mode, compute the forced key index at each crib.
For each period and step, subtract the progression and reduce to the slot; reject on disagreement.
Count survivors by period; match surviving fragments against the vocabulary and K1-K3 windows; decrypt and submit matches.
8
Result and bounds
The harness's record: candidates, gates, loss, and the negative result this experiment leaves behind.