Experiment 242
F13.5 (issue #85). Every earlier key-source search (0004-0021, 0045-0053, 0109, 0115, 0117, 0154, 0210) decided by the 24 known letters. Here the same memorable keys are read with no known letter: five methods, every key from the source order (program.md: K1-K3 words, the sculpture's texts, the Morse, Carter, then the dictionary), every reading scored exhaustively by quadgrams, the 20 best per method rescored by MIX8m (0233). A: a periodic key word (every puzzle word and every dictionary word of 3-24 letters, every start) on the 24 rules of the sculpture's tables. B: keyword-mixed tables from the puzzle words (one side or both) with a puzzle key word. C: a running key from 0210's named texts, every offset, both directions, on the 24 rules. D: plaintext and ciphertext autokey primed by any puzzle or dictionary word, on the 24 rules. E: a keyword columnar keyed by a puzzle word, before or after the table with a puzzle key word. Statistic: max z over the five methods against K4's 100 shuffles; plants (8 per method, keys drawn from the same sources) each against 10 own shuffles.
What the method does with the 24 known letters.
The creators said the keythe secret word The word or string a cipher needs besides the method. could be remembered: a word, or a passage of a known text. Earlier runs checked every such key against the clue wordsthe known letters Sanborn has confirmed that positions 22 to 34 of the message read EASTNORTHEAST and positions 64 to 74 read BERLINCLOCK.. Here we check them again without looking at the clue words at all: every key word, every passage of the sculpture's texts and Carter's book, every keyword-scrambled table, read in full and keptthe champion The candidate with the lowest loss so far among those that passed every check. only if the result reads as English. K4the carved letters The 97 letters cut into the copper at the CIA, shown at the top of every experiment page. is compared with shuffles of its own letters treated the same way, and hidden test messages made with keys from the same lists show whether a right key would stand out.
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.
F13.5: memorable keys (puzzle words, any dictionary word, passages of the named texts) read without the clue words, kept only if the result reads as English.
The run stopped while making its test messages: one running-key plant was drawn from K1's text, which is shorter than 97 letters.
0243: plants drawn only from texts longer than 97 letters; the search itself unchanged.
What this experiment was built on, from the lineage page: 13 experiments before it, back to the root of its line. Its number is in bold.
This experiment produced no candidate: the search ruled everything out before a full text was built. Its product is the bounded negative under Result and bounds below.
Redo the method on a few letters with pencil and paper.
The same steps run by the code on the real letters.
Family, key space, the constraint under test, and the clues it reads.
C5 ('simple, can be remembered, executed with the correct key word/s'), C6(a) (keys concealed at the sculpture), C7(a) (K1-K3 words as keys), C25(a) (the Morse words), C20(a) (layer two). Each method was closed exactly with the known letters (0005, 0009-0011, 0020, 0053, 0109, 0115, 0117, 0154, 0210; autokeys 0002, 0003, 0025, 0064; keyword columnars 0110-0114). Those verdicts stand only if the 24 letters sit where stated, letter for letter, without slips (A1, A2) and the plaintext is not masked out of their places. F13.5 is that hedge: the key space is at most about 30 bits per method (log2 of 54 million settings), far under what 97 letters of English carry, and every setting is read, so where the known letters are exact this adds nothing; it decides only the cases where they are not. Pre-registered: S = max over the five methods of (best MIX8m minus the shuffles' mean) / their sd; K4 flags at p < 0.05 against 100 shuffles (one test); a plant is found when its S is above all 10 own shuffles' S; a method is decided when at least 6 of its 8 plants are found.
Written before the run; the result decides it.
Plants found 8 of 8 in every method (the keys are read exhaustively, so the true key's reading is scored directly). K4 inside its shuffles (p above 0.05), its readings junk with at most 3-4 of 24 known letters in place (harness gate 2). F13.5 closes as exact over the stated key lists.
The harness's record: candidates, gates, loss, and the negative result this experiment leaves behind.
The run stopped with an error: ValueError: empty range for randrange()
How this experiment sits among the others is on the lineage page; its family's open hypotheses are on the families page.