Experiment 117
0017 and 0090 used the sculpture's texts (the K1/K2 matrix among them) as a running key letter for letter. Sanborn was 'surprised that no one had tried recovering the original matrix and running it through all the possible shifts'. Here every key text gets a constant shift of the table, all 26, on top: the known letters must then differ from the key text by one constant, which is tested exactly through difference signatures, with no move and with every move of the type-1 library, before or after the table.
What the method does with the 24 known letters.
Sanborn once said he was surprised nobody had taken the original matrix and run it through all the possible shifts. One reading: take one of the sculpture's texts as a long key, and slide the whole table by a fixed amount, any of 26, before using it. We test every text, every starting point and every shift, with and without the grid moves of experiments 80 to 83, against the 24 known lettersthe known letters Sanborn has confirmed that positions 22 to 34 of the message read EASTNORTHEAST and positions 64 to 74 read BERLINCLOCK..
Words in the margin are defined on the glossary page.
The carved letters go in at the top; the reading comes out at the bottom.
Sanborn said he was surprised nobody had run the original matrix through all the possible shifts. One reading: use one of the sculpture's texts as a long key and slide the whole table by a fixed amount first.
At each known place the key needed is the carved letter minus the known letter. With a fixed slide, needed minus offered must be the same at all 24 places; in this example no shift is shared by more than a few.
Every text, start and shift, with and without 27,852 grid moves on either side: no full match, no crib word alone, and the deepest partial run, 8, sits among the scrambled coppers' 7 to 9.
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.
Redo the method on a few letters with pencil and paper.
The same steps run by the code on the real letters.
key text: the four ciphertexts as one panel (the K1/K2 block first), offset 0; sculpture's alphabet, Vigenere
place known carved needed key text offered needed - offered
22 E F 1 K 0 1
23 A L 10 R 1 9
24 S R 21 N 19 2
25 T V 18 S 6 12
64 B N 11 V 22 15
65 E Y 17 F 12 5
74 K K 0 W 23 3
a constant shift would make the last column the same at all 24 places
Family, key space, the constraint under test, and the clues it reads.
C2(b): 'shifts' as the 26 row shifts of the tableau, the matrix as the K1/K2 block or another carved text; C6(a). Model: c_i = E(p_i, k_{o+i} + s) for a key text k, offset o and constant s; E in 12 conventions (Vigenere, Beaufort, variant; plain and cipher alphabets standard or KRYPTOS) and key letters numbered on the standard or KRYPTOS alphabet. Because s is free, only the differences between known places matter: the 23 differences of the forced key must equal the key text's. Key texts as in 0090 (tableau by rows, rows with index, columns; Morse as carved and reversed; the four ciphertexts; K1-K3 plaintexts; Sanborn's 1989 letter, 1991 dedication texts and 2025 letter), forward and backward, every cyclic offset; Carter's book in the change-then-move order only. Moves: the type-1 library (identity included). Change then move: a dictionary of window signatures; move then change: a pair index on differences, filtered check by check. Ten shuffled coppers.
Written before the run; the result decides it.
No text, offset, shift and move fits all 24 known letters; the deepest partial agreement matches the scrambled coppers'. Zero candidates.
The harness's record: candidates, gates, loss, and the negative result this experiment leaves behind.
27,852 routes x 12 conventions. Change then move (44 numbered key texts incl. Carter): full K4 0, controls [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]; EASTNORTHEAST stretch K4 0 (controls [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]); BERLINCLOCK stretch K4 0 (controls [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]). Move then change (40 key texts): full 0, deepest K4 8, controls [8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 7, 9, 8, 8, 8] (10 completed).
What was searched, as the harness recorded it.
How this experiment sits among the others is on the lineage page; its family's open hypotheses are on the families page.