The mysterious Voynich manuscript

Voynich manuscript is one of the mysterious manuscripts that is not yet decoded. The writer of this book and its purpose is still a mystery, and so as expected there are many theories woven around this. Various assumptions for the purpose of this book include:

• Early discoveries and inventions by the 13th century written in encrypted form.
• Nonsense wrote by a medieval quack, to impress leaders.
• A rare prayer book not destroyed by the inquisition, written in the ancient script not known.
• Meaningless strings of characters cleverly composed for monetary gain.

This book is preserved in Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Carbon dating determines its existence came in the 13th century.

Dozens of medievalists and cryptologists are studying this book every year but are not yet able to decipher it. It is also believed that the content of this book was ciphered by retouching text and drawings.

The content of this book consists of scripts with the illustration of plants, stars, female expressions and chemical secrets. Though the content of this book is well organized, the annoying point is that this 234 pages book has an empty cover i.e. neither author name nor the book title.

Encoding of this script is done to some extent and it is believed that below alphabetic format is used:

The whole book is available in digital form and can be explored here. This is one of the sample pages of this book:

Alchemy - Sacred Secrets Revealed

Alchemy is an ancient philosophy full of secret and mystery that flourished in Europe, Asia and Africa. The practioners of alchemy were believed to have power to convert any metal into gold.

The knowledge of alchemy was not just limited to scientific intentions but was also used in religious traditions. Though it is not clear whether the alchemy practioners used their skills to purify human souls or just convert lead into precious gold. But this ancient tradition played a vital role in fostering inventions in the field of chemistry and medicine.

In this video we can take an in-depth look at this most Sacred Science, what are some of the myths, and how it relates to consciousness and spirituality. This video focus primarily on the spiritual aspects of Alchemy:

Secrets of Archimedes (a great mathematician and founder of Pi)

Archimedes (287 BC - 212 BC) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics, statics and an explanation of the principle of the lever. He is credited with designing innovative machines, including siege engines and the screw pump that bears his name. Modern experiments have tested claims that Archimedes designed machines capable of lifting attacking ships out of the water and setting ships on fire using an array of mirrors.

Archimedes is generally considered to be the greatest mathematician of antiquity and one of the greatest of all time. He used the method of exhaustion to calculate the area under the arc of a parabola with the summation of an infinite series and gave a remarkably accurate approximation of pi. He also defined the spiral bearing his name, formulae for the volumes of surfaces of revolution and an ingenious system for expressing very large numbers.

Archimedes died during the Siege of Syracuse when he was killed by a Roman soldier despite orders that he should not be harmed. Cicero describes visiting the tomb of Archimedes, which was surmounted by a sphere inscribed within a cylinder. Archimedes had proven that the sphere has two-thirds of the volume and surface area of the cylinder (including the bases of the latter), and regarded this as the greatest of his mathematical achievements.

Unlike his inventions, the mathematical writings of Archimedes were little known in antiquity. Mathematicians from Alexandria read and quoted him, but the first comprehensive compilation was not made until c. 530 AD by Isidore of Miletus, while commentaries on the works of Archimedes written by Eutocius in the sixth century AD opened them to wider readership for the first time. The relatively few copies of Archimedes' written work that survived through the Middle Ages were an influential source of ideas for scientists during the Renaissance, while the discovery in 1906 of previously unknown works by Archimedes in the Archimedes Palimpsest has provided new insights into how he obtained mathematical results.