Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Judge's Novel Da Vinci Code

UKnjb

UKnjb

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 23, 2005
716
0
London, UK
The BBC has published these details on their web-site.

The judge who presided over the failed Da Vinci Code plagiarism case at London's High Court hid his own secret code in his written judgement.
Seemingly random italicised letters were included in the 71-page judgement given by Mr Justice Peter Smith, which apparently spell out a message.

Mr Justice Smith said he would confirm the code if someone broke it.

"I can't discuss the judgement, but I don't see why a judgement should not be a matter of fun," he said.

Can you crack the judge's code?

Italicised letters in the first few pages spell out "Smithy Code", while the following pages also contain marked out letters.

In March, he presided over a High Court case brought by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who claimed Dan Brown plagiarised their own historical book for The Da Vinci Code.
Click to expand...

In order to save you time/effort, the relevant letters marked out in his judgement are:

smithycodeJaeiextostgpsacgreamqwfkadpmqzvin

Any takers from MR to crack this?
 
Just a stab in the dark, but if you take out all the letters that spell "the da vinci code" you're left with:

smiywokJaextstgpsagreamqfpmqz
 
Chundles said:
Two q's. No u's. Is it another language? Latin?
Click to expand...

I think you might be on the right track there Chundles.

It will be interesting to see how this code works, and what it says! :) (assuming that someone will work it out eventually :p)
 
iSaint said:
maybe he got one if his kids to do some l33t for him
Click to expand...

hehe, possible...but maybe he knows leet himself, maybe he is a bit of a computer boffin :p
 
Code Broken !!!!

All participants were close ---- so very very close.

However, 2 UK newspapers (The Times and The Guardian) got it right.

So. So competition over and --- Well Done to the collective and superior intellects of MR!! :) :confused:

Full(ish) report here

**** Competition Now Over --- It's Official ****
 
I didn't read the solution, but I'm slightly confused that the "translation" has one letter less than the original code. :confused:
 
Well done! It's nice to see that a bit of fun was added to the court sentence , and that the code was cracked! :)
 
Shamus said:
Well done! It's nice to see that a bit of fun was added to the court sentence , and that the code was cracked! :)
Click to expand...

You are in such a minority, Shamus. The feedback on the various related sites here (BBC etc) was that the judge should stick to judging and not waste tax-payers' money on indulging in this sort of stuff. :( Very disapproving. Me, I thought it was great.
 
UKnjb said:
You are in such a minority, Shamus. The feedback on the various related sites here (BBC etc) was that the judge should stick to judging and not waste tax-payers' money on indulging in this sort of stuff. :( Very disapproving. Me, I thought it was great.
Click to expand...

Perhaps. There is a history though of judges getting creative with rulings. Some come to mind recently where rulings have come down in verse. Perhaps its a side effect of the judiciary being reigned in by tradition and legislatures that they express individuality any way they can.
 
MongoTheGeek said:
Perhaps. There is a history though of judges getting creative with rulings. ~snip~
Click to expand...

You're right. i was listening to the radio, I think last night, and there was a quote about another judge (and I paraphrase). The gulity defendant, who had been sent down for 10 years by the judge, had called the judge the "c" word. Out loud! Like that! And the judge replied that, whereas the defendant was going to be in the pokey for the next 10 years, without any home comforts etc, he, the judge was going to go home, have a beer, be with his wife etc. So he asked the defendant who was the "c" word now? Cracked me up.
 
UKnjb said:
You are in such a minority, Shamus. The feedback on the various related sites here (BBC etc) was that the judge should stick to judging and not waste tax-payers' money on indulging in this sort of stuff. :( Very disapproving. Me, I thought it was great.
Click to expand...

Yes, I guessed that some people would respond in this way. But when you think about it, it was a 71 page report. That takes alot of time to do. Now the actual construction of the code took less than an hour and a half. I think that for the value and interest it spurred, it was worth it. Im glad you thought it was good too. :)
 
Shamus said:
I somewhat agree. They have cracked the code, now it is time to discover the meaning behind this cryptic solution.
Click to expand...

Well, the article does talk about the meaning of the solution ("The judge admires Admiral Jackie Fisher, who developed battleship HMS Dreadnought, which launched in February 1906, 100 years before the case began.") but I'm wanting to hear how to get from the supposed random jumble of letters to the solution of 'Jackie Fisher who are you Dreadnought'.
 
dejo said:
Well, the article does talk about the meaning of the solution ("The judge admires Admiral Jackie Fisher, who developed battleship HMS Dreadnought, which launched in February 1906, 100 years before the case began.") but I'm wanting to hear how to get from the supposed random jumble of letters to the solution of 'Jackie Fisher who are you Dreadnought'.
Click to expand...

Can I suggest that you apply the basic Fibonacci series of numbers to the Judge's sequence of letters (it was given as a clue in the linked article of one of my previous posts) ? Think offset to the alphabet. :)
 
Well, first off "jaeiextostgpsacgreamqwfkadpmqzvin" has one more character then "jackiefisherwhoareyoudreadnought", so that starts off confusing.

Ignoring that, let's see what I can come up with:

jaeiextostgpsacgreamqwfkadpmqzvin

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55...

So, then, j +/- 0 = j

And a +/- 1 = a ???

EDIT: Got it! Guess the judge started his Fibonacci at 1, like in the book.
 
dejo said:
Well, first off "jaeiextostgpsacgreamqwfkadpmqzvin" has one more character then "jackiefisherwhoareyoudreadnought", so that starts off confusing. ~snip~
EDIT: Got it! Guess the judge started his Fibonacci at 1, like in the book.
Click to expand...

Congratulations!!!! Sorry I didn't get back earlier, but I had to sleep. :)

The Times published the method for solving it here and The Guardian has a similar, although generally unhelpful explanation here.
 
F.y.i.

Initial code: SMITHYCODEJAEIEXTOSTGPSACGREAMQWFKADPMQZVZ

Translated: SMITHYCODEJAFKIEFISTHRWHOAREBOUDREADQOUGHT

Typos corrected: SMITHYCODEJACKIEFISHERWHOAREYOUDREADNOUGHT

Or: Smithy Code Jackie Fisher who are you Dreadnought
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back