)A good mystery offers many pleasures: the allure of secret knowledge, the hints of reality beyond what we already know, the neurochemical satisfaction of solving a puzzles. Of course, some mysteries are appealing because they have resisted solving for so long. From grand questions like the nature of dark matter and dark energy to ancient riddles like the Antikythera mechanism, unanswered questions stir the imagination, perhaps holding out some small measure of hope that we will have the uncommon insight to discover the solution. And so it is with the Voynich manuscript, an early 15th century document full of recognizable illustrations and indecipherable text. Or at least undeciphered—despite what you may have read recently.
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