“F14.6a: three puzzle key words summed on the sculpture's tables, and a puzzle keyword table with a puzzle word plus a dictionary word summed; the known letters force the last word, looked up among every rotation; K4 against 50 shuffles, plants of both forms”
F14.6a (issue #93; reports/f14.6-grammar.md forms 8 and 11). 0059 summed two puzzle words, 0115 a puzzle word and a dictionary word, both on the standard and KRYPTOS tables only. Form 8: three puzzle words (171, every start) summed, 24 rules; for every pair of the first two (with starts) the 24 known letters force the third at the slots they cover, looked up among every rotation of every puzzle word of that length (2-30; for lengths with slots no known place covers, matched on the covered slots). Form 11: a keyword-mixed alphabet from a puzzle word (170) on the plain side, the cipher side or both, with a puzzle word plus a dictionary word (3-24) summed as the key: 5,100 table setups x 1,085 puzzle-word starts, the dictionary word forced and looked up as 0115.
Using the sculpture's tablethe table The right-hand half of the sculpture, 26 rows of the alphabet each shifted one place further, starting from the word KRYPTOS. three times, each time with a different remembered word, is the same as using it once with a key made by addingVigenere The three rules of arithmetic a table can use: add the key letter to the message letter, subtract the message letter from the key letter, or subtract the key letter from the message letter. the three words letter by letter. If we guess the first two words, 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. tell us exactly what the third must be, so we only need to look it up. We also try a table scrambled by one puzzle word with a key made of two words. Shuffles of K4the carved letters The 97 letters cut into the copper at the CIA, shown at the top of every experiment page. go through the same search.
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 idea
F14.6a: the table used three times with three remembered words, or a puzzle-word table used with two words: one key, the words added.
the check
Guess all but the last word; the known letters force the last one, which is looked up among every word from every start.
the bound
Nothing fits K4 or any of its 50 shuffles; plants 8 + 8 of 16: dead, exactly.
2
Experiment lineage
What this experiment was built on, from the lineage page: 4 experiments before it, back to the root of its line. Its number is in bold.
keptreverted, in its family's colour×error or timeoutreverted under today's rulesbuilt on a parent in the same familybuilt on a parent in another family
3
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 under Result and bounds below.
4
Walkthrough, by hand
Redo the method on a few letters with pencil and paper.
Pick a rule of the table and two puzzle words with their starting letters, say KRYPTOS from K and ABSCISSA from A.
At each known place work out the key letter the table needs, and take off the two words' letters there.
What is left at each known place is the third word's letter at that place; places a word-length apart must agree.
If they agree for some length, read the third word off and look it up among the puzzle words, from every starting letter.
Repeat for every pair, rule and length, and for the shuffles of K4.
the worksheet: the first steps by hand, on squared paper
5
Worked example, generated
The same steps run by the code on the real letters.
Three words summed on the KRYPTOS table (Vigenere): KRYPTOS from K, ABSCISSA from A; the third word forced
place known carved key value KRYPTOS ABSCISSA third word's letter
22 E F 1 K S U
23 A L 10 R S P
24 S R 21 Y A F
25 T V 18 P A B
26 N Q 1 T B I
64 B N 11 K A T
65 E Y 17 R A C
Places a word-length apart must ask the same letter; the forced word is looked up from every start.
6
Hypothesis, for a cryptanalyst
Family, key space, the constraint under test, and the clues it reads.
Scheidt: 'building layers... mix and match' (2015), 'key word/s' (C5), keys from parts (his key-splitting habit); C20(a) 'layer two' as further passes; C4(a) a keyword-alphabet mask. Three passes over the table with three remembered words is one table with the summed key (period lcm of the lengths, often beyond 97), so no periodic test sees it, but the known letters force the last word once the others are guessed. Pre-registered: no setting fits K4 beyond the shuffles' rate (counts of forced-word hits per form, K4 against 50 shuffles, flag at p < 0.05/2); a fit is decrypted and judged by the gates. A plant of each form (Carter, keys drawn from the same lists) is found when its own keys come back.
7
Prediction
Written before the run; the result decides it.
Form 8: no hit on K4, a few or none on shuffles. Form 11: no hit on K4, as the shuffles. Plants 8 of 8 per form.
8
Method
Puzzle words: 0115's 171 (every start: 1,085); keyword alphabets of the puzzle words: 170; dictionary rotations of 3-24 letters (0115).
Form 8: 24 rules (Vigenere, variant, Beaufort; plain, cipher and key alphabets standard or KRYPTOS). For each rule and each pair of puzzle-word starts, the forced remainder at the 24 known places; for each length 2-30, slots must agree, and the third word is looked up.
Form 11: 5,100 setups (keyword alphabet W on both sides, W with standard or KRYPTOS, either side; 3 rules; key letters numbered on standard or KRYPTOS); each puzzle-word start; the dictionary word of length 3-24 forced and looked up.
K4 and 50 shuffles; 8 plants per form with their own known letters.
K4's hits decrypted in full and submitted.
9
Result and bounds
The harness's record: candidates, gates, loss, and the negative result this experiment leaves behind.
0candidates returned
0passed every gate
0/24known letters, best
–lowest loss
nonechampion before
form 8 (three puzzle words): K4 0 hits, shuffles max 0; form 11 (puzzle table, puzzle + dictionary word): K4 0, shuffles max 0; plants {'form8': 8, 'form11': 8}
What was searched, as the harness recorded it.
item
F14.6a (forms 8 and 11)
puzzle words
171
puzzle word starts
1,085
puzzle alphabets
170
form8 settings per text
14,139,720
form8 third word lengths
2, 30
form11 setups
5,100
form11 dictionary word lengths
3, 24
summary
form8
k4 hits
0
copies hits max
0
copies hits median
0
copies with any
0
p
1
form11
k4 hits
0
copies hits max
0
copies hits median
0
copies with any
0
p
1
flag alpha
0.025
plants found
form8
8
form11
8
plants per form
8
k4 hits
form8
none
form11
none
texts
67
copies
50
exhaustive
yes
compute seconds
89
How this experiment sits among the others is on the lineage page; its family's open hypotheses are on the families page.
Rendered from the record on 2026-11-05 17:14 UTC; updated after every experiment.