Encyclopedia of observations

TODO - work in progress

This page is meant to collect the many factual observations people have made about the 340 cipher over the years.

• The paper the cipher is written on contains several Fifth Avenue watermarks (here's glurk's animation to help you spot where they appear).
• The first 3 symbols of the 340 do not reappear soon. It starts with "HER", and H only appears 3 other times, E only appears 2 other times. (From Duman)
• In the third column, the 3 occurrences of the "R" symbol are evenly spaced, each separated by four rows. (From Wrench)
• The author of the cipher does not use the forward-facing letter Q as a cipher symbol, but uses a backwards-facing Q instead. Similarly, he does not use the forward-facing letter C as a cipher symbol in the 408-character cipher, but uses a backwards-facing C instead. Why doesn't he use up all the normal alphabetic symbols before resorting to additional symbols and variations?
• The first repeated symbol occurs at the 19th position. Thus the first 18 symbols contain no repeats. Coincidentally, the last 18 symbols of the 408 cipher do not form a legible solution. (From traveller1st)
• The most frequently occurring symbol, +, occurs 24 times. Only once does it fall on a prime-numbered position in the cipher text (counting from 1 to 340), against expectations. (More detail) (From Dan Johnson)
• The second most frequently occurring symbol, B, occurs 12 times. Only once does it fall on a prime-numbered position in the cipher text (counting from 1 to 340), against expectations. (More detail) (From Dan Johnson)