Experiment 262
F5.2, reopened by D2 (0252): 0195 left three-term base 26 at lag 6 (3.1 billion primers) and longer two-term lags blocked under the old 30-minute budget; issue #96 removed the time limit. Same compiled exact test as 0195 (equal known letters fix digit differences, then the one-to-one check on the free alphabet), now split by the primer's last digit so the work spreads over any number of workers; the rule set widened to every rule up to about 2.3 x 10^11 primers in total.
What the method does with the 24 known letters.
A GromarkGromark A cipher whose secret is a short number that grows into a long stream of digits by adding pairs of earlier digits; each message letter is pushed along the alphabet by the next digit. key is a run of digits that grows 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. earlier digits together, from a few starting digits. Some longer versions, and the version that counts in 26s (one digit per letter), were never tried because they took too long. Now there is no time limit, so every starting run is tried for each of them, with any scrambled alphabet, to see whether any fits 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.
F5.2 left the costliest Gromark rules untried under the old half-hour budget: three-term rules in base 26 (a letter primer read as digits, YAR among them) and two-term rules with lags 7-10.
Every rule and every one of 234,092,726,300 starting runs, four ways of applying the digit, any mixed alphabet: repeated known letters pin digit differences, then all 24 letters must match one to one.
K4 0 settings, ten scrambled copies 0-3; the three planted texts are found (4, 1, 2). F5.2 closed.
What this experiment was built on, from the lineage page: 6 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.
base 16, each digit the sum of the digits 1, 3 and 6 places back, primer 1 2 3 4 5 6:
1 2 3 4 5 6 11 2 11 10 1 2 7 10 7 8 3 12 11 8 11 14 9 0 9 10 5 12 15 4 9 2 11 0
places 26 and 27 (N, O over Q, Q), form M[P+d]=c: need d26 - d27 = 1; here 10 - 5 = 5
Family, key space, the constraint under test, and the clues it reads.
C22(a) (YAR as a Gromark primer; base 26 lets a letter primer be read directly as digits), C4(b) (Scheidt's other bases), F5. Model as 0107/0195: d[i] = sum of d[i - lag] over the rule's two or three lags mod B, the primer the first max(lag) digits, four forms M[P+d]=c, M[P-d]=c, M[C-d]=p, M[C+d]=p with M a free alphabet. Exhaustive over primers. Statistic: consistent (rule, primer, form) settings, K4 against 10 shuffled copies; three plants.
Written before the run; the result decides it.
No setting consistent on K4 or the copies (as 0195); every plant found. Zero candidates.
The harness's record: candidates, gates, loss, and the negative result this experiment leaves behind.
234,092,726,300 primers x 4 forms; consistent K4 0 (copies 0-3); plants [4, 1, 2]
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.