Triangle, Line, Pentagon and so on....

I haven't tried this yet, but has anyone noticed that the these symbols are in in only 2 positions..lets call them up or down. It reminds me of Binary, and my guess here is that each up or down positions will convert to either a one or a zero. Once converted they will lead to letters. (EX. 01100001 is the letter A)

The tough part is trying to figure out what is actually up and down, if you are one digit off, it changes everything.

Anyone try this and have any luck with it? I could be nuts, but Stadther was a programmer, so this logic could be correct.

Tim,

I've started work on those code lines, but haven't come up with anything concrete as yet.

I think they might be coordinates for a 5 x 5 grid, but I haven't come up with the answer.

It's a more complex variant of the Polybius codes from ATT.

There are several steps to get the correct coordinates:

1. The ten symbols are five pairs: drops, triangles, rectangles, moons, and shapes

2. The pairs can be ordered according to the number of points or vertices:

a. Drops = 1
b. Moons = 2
c. Triangles = 3
d. Rectangles = 4
e. Shapes = 5 and 6 for the pentagon and hexagon respectively.

The fact that the 'shapes' pair contain the members for both 5 and 6 are a hint for the ordering of the individual symbols. This will be an example of talking forwards, then backwards or ascending, then descending:

Going up:

a. Drops
b. Moons
c. Triangles
d. Rectangles
e. Shapes

Going down:

f. Shapes
g. Rectangles
h. Triangles
i. Moons
j. Drops

3. Assign the individual members of each symbol pair to its position 1 - 10:

The pentagon and hexagon representing the 'shapes' pair are fixed at numbers 5 and 6.

As has been noted, most of the individual symbols of each pair are either 'up' or 'down', and I would assign them to either the ascending or descending part of the series accordingly. The moons are either 'left' or 'right' and since numbers 1 - 5 are on the 'left' side of the complete series 1 - 10 and the numbers 6 - 10 are on the 'right' side of the complete series, I would assign the left and right moons accordingly.

So, the final order of the ten symbols would be this:

1. Up drop
2. Left moon
3. Up triangle
4. Up rectangle
5. Pentagon
6. Hexagon
7. Lying down rectangle
8. Down triangle
9. Right moon
10. Down drop

If you number them 1 - 5 in ascending and descending order (and I think we have to do this to get the correct coordinates) you would get this:

Up drop--1, Left moon--2, Up triangle--3, Up rectangle--4, Pentagon--5, Hexagon--5, Lying down rectangle--4, Down triangle - 3, Right moon - 2, Down drop - 1.

4. Pair the symbols in each string.

I think you pair the symbols in each string. There is one string which has an odd number of symbols and can't be paired. I personally think that means a symbol is present which isn't a coordinate pair, but just a single digit number, such as BASE 5, or something like that.

As you can see, each individual symbol has three different qualities:

1. North/south according whether it is located in the ascending or descending part of the ten symbol series.
2. East/west according if it's on the 'left' or the 'right' on the series 1 - 10 (ascending/descending)
3. Individual number 1 - 5

Pair the symbols and take a reading. Convert the first symbol of the pair to north/south and the second symbol to east/west.

(I've got company and will return later to complete this 'War and Peace' post.)



Doc

Hey Doc....

I have to tell you, I am a big fan. You always come up with something that is out of the box thinking, yet so logical at the same time.

I do have a question for you on the "shapes" symbol. It seems to me that there are up and down Hexagons and Pentagons. Why did you put them in one category? I'm trying to understand what you are saying, but I am not quite sure I get it.

If the shapes symbols are broken out in to 2 distinct symbols, and the line symbols is included, we are looking at 6 seperate symbols and 12 total different directions which messes up the 5x5 grid. Are you combing the Hex and Pent shapes because it preserves the 5X5, or do you think Stadther gives us clues to combine those 2 into 1 shape?

Timothy,

I think the symbols are logically arranged into five pairs. The pentagon and hexagon form one of these logical pairs.

When you start assigning the specific order to the symbols, the pentagon falls at 5 and the hexagon at 6.

I see no difference between and up and down hexagon.

BUT, the pentagon is part of the ascending set of 1 - 5. In other words, THERE CAN BE NO 'DOWN' PENTAGON. The 'down' part of this pair is the hexagon.

What this means: The orientation of the pentagon must always be 'up'. This gives you the correct orientation to read the string of symbols.

Notice that an up and down pentagon never occur in the same string of symbols. You read the string of symbols such that the pentagon faces 'up'.

I don't know if that makes any sense or not....

Doc

Continuing my current line of thinking about the code containing five pairs of symbols....

After arranging the ten symbols into sequence, each symbol has three properties:

1. A symbol can be north or south depending if it's in the 'up' or 'down' sequence 1-2-3-4-5-5-4-3-2-1.
2. A symbol can be east or west depending if it's to the 'left' or 'right' part of the same sequence (same separation as the up or down)
3. A symbol can be a single number 1 - 5.

Step 4: Pair the symbols.

Reading the first four symbols from the Great Forest string (turn the book upside down to keep the pentagon facing 'up'):

Up rectangle - up triangle - hexagon - down triangle.

Just as the GPS coordinates had north/south first and east/west second, I think we do the same thing here. Convert the first symbol of the pair to its north/west association and the second symbol to east/west.

So, the up rectangle = north and the up triangle = west.

The first part we need is 'NW'.

Then, convert the symbols to their numeric equivalents.

The 'up rectangle' = 4 and the 'up triangle' = 3.

So, the first pair of 'up rectangle, up triangle' becomes NW 4,3.

(I'm still working through all of this--I don't know if you actually take groupings of four and the first two symbols give you the directions and the last two are the actual grid coordinates, or if we're to do it as I just demonstrated reading the same pair of symbols for both the directions and the coordinates.)

Step 5: Contruct the grids.

As you can see, 'reading' this code will consist of the first part being NE, NW, SE, and SW followed by the coordinate pair.

I think it's a big '+' sign--an X-Y coordinate grid.

The first directional pair tells you which section of the grid to use, either NE, NW, SE, or SW. You would then go to that section to use your coordinate pair 3,1.

I think the 5 x 5 grid will be populated the same in all four quadrants--what changes is the numbering system. The 1,1 square could be in any of the four corners depending on which quadrant you're using.

If you're in the NE quadrant, 1,1 = lower left corner. If you're in the SW quadrant, 1,1 = northeast corner.

(Another possibility--the NE, SE, SW, NW is telling you where to place the 1,1 rather than which quadrant of the grid to use.)

You are talking about the series of solid maroon colored symbols on pages 2 and 5, right?

Why are you trying to pair these symbols together? The lower set on page 5 has an odd number of symbols, so the pairing does not work.

I count 10 different symbols if you take the up/down orientation of the directional ones as being unique. Why not treat them as decimal digits? Then you have a code of numbers to work with.

-Rusty

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It's not a place, it's a yearning. It's not a race, it's a journey.

The pairing works if a single symbol is replaced in your plaintext as its digit, such as BASE 5 would require 9 symbols. Two symbols for the B, A, S, and E and a single symbol for '5'.

I think the fact that the symbols fall out into natural pairs, drops, triangles, etc. might be a hint that you're supposed to pair the symbols in the strings.

I stated that each symbol can have three different properties is still true, but there might be another--the fact that each can be given a number 1 - 6 may come into play because I've come to the conclusion that the underlying method for the puzzles of Dar is based on circles.

And 1 - 6 happens to be half a clock.

Still thinking....

Doc

My thinking on this code is a bit more simplified. Ten different symbols mapping to the ten decimal digits. I have no idea what to do with the digits after that.

One thing I did notice was that the pentagon is only upside down on page two, and only right side up on page 5. I think the string of symbols on page 2 needs to be rotated 180 degrees.

-Rusty

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It's not a place, it's a yearning. It's not a race, it's a journey.

So looking at the great forest page, page 2, I applied some of these theories and combined them with my own (of course):

Key:
Up drops =1
Left moon = 2
Up triangle = 3
Verticle bar = 4
Pentagram = 5
Hexagram = 6
Horizontal bar = 7
Down triangle = 8
Right moon = 9
Down drop = 10

So no repeats. I agree with Rusty, the pentagram is used only for orientation of the sequence (something has to be)

So reading left to right and coding for the numbers, I get:

4,3,6,7,1,6,10, 10, 3, 5, 8, 5,6 10, 6, 5, 3, 8, 1, 2, 2, 5, 1, 10, 6, 5, 2, 5, 4, 3, 9, 4, 9, 1, 2, 6, 4, 3

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I like the idea of having 10 different numbers associated with the shapes, but keep in mind that nothing tells you (if it does I haven't seen it yet) if the vertical bar is 4 and the horizontal is 7 or the vertical is 7 and the horizontal is 4. Same thing for the moons.

Also we are assuming that the sequence starts up and goes down but it could also start down and go up.

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