Neal Stephenson is at it again!

He's written a new book called <i>Quicksilver</i>, which is part of his new <i>Baroque Cycle</i>. It is, in part, about very old cryptography as described by John Wilkins in his book <A target="_blank" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/9027232768/fantasistnet">Mercury…;. What's interesting to me, though, is that Mr. Stephenson used this old code to run a contest. (The details can be found <a target="_blank" href="http://www.baroquecycle.com/letter1.htm">here</a&gt;.) But, it's already been solved! What's more, the person who solved the mystery had never heard about Mercury, John Wilkins, or the cryptography system. Here's a blow-by-blow account of <a target="_blank" href="http://tgarrison11.home.comcast.net/">how he did it</a>.