Encryption Puzzle

http://www.danderoux.com/Murals/composite.html


This puzzle is on/in the wall of the new high in Juneau Alaska. The 4 center squares are lit from behind. The artist/coder is Dan DeRoux. The only hint given is green.

Help! ?

Are u sure its not just some sort of contemporary design, u know how these modern artists are, expressing their emotions through abstract art, concealing the fact that they dont know the frirst thing about painting

Originally posted by D Ma G
Are u sure its not just some sort of contemporary design, u know how these modern artists are, expressing their emotions through abstract art, concealing the fact that they dont know the frirst thing about painting

It contains an encrypted message:
http://juneauempire.com/stories/092508/spo_336785969.shtml

*edit* Also, take a look at the actual wall: it would appear that the coloration, and even the orientation of some of the pieces (i.e. the fish in the upper left) is not important, per se.

http://www.danderoux.com/Murals/EncryptClose.html

Anybody recognize anything?

Originally posted by Aynat
Anybody recognize anything?

The seventh symbol in the second row looks like an atom, and in fact the dots are arranged in such a way as to suggest the energy levels in an atom (2, 8, 18, 18, 7) but it's not quite right...It should be 2, 8, 8, 18. The third circle should have 8.

HOWEVER...

The energy levels in an atom are arranged strangely...S orbitals have 2 electrons and start in the first energy level, P orbitals have 8 and start in the second...while the D orbitals have 18 and start in the third, but the 3D orbital is filled up after the 4P orbital if I remember correctly, or something similar...which means that the atom symbol might not be incorrect out of ignorance but instead simply subtly incorrect for a reason.

The fifth symbol in the second row is clearly a molecule of some sort. It looks familiar. Sugar? One of the DNA bases? Somehow the idea that the five membered ring can also shift to being a six membered ring is popping into my head, but I don't remember where I'm getting that from...

The first symbol in the seventh row is exactly one fourth of a chessboard.

In the center...the first symbol looks like it's referring to A) index/pointing finger or B) knuckle. The circle might refer to a ring. The second symbol in the center reminds me of a cladogram. The fourth one in the center is the Korean letter R or L (they're the same in Korean).

The whole painting is 8x8, again suggesting a chessboard.

The sixth symbol on the bottom row is 1015 in Roman numerals.

The sixth symbol in the seventh row might refer to some chemical formula...C5N5H5. In chemistry we learn that straight chain carbon molecules have 2C+2 hydrogens, with C being how many carbons are present. Each N would add one to that, so this molecule (if that's what it is) should have 17 hydrogens. In fact is has 5, so it is short 12! That would mean 6 rings and/or pi bonds...it's probably not a molecule then. That doesn't work. Does it?

H2N - C (triple bond) C - C (triple bond) C - CH = N - N = N - NH2

Something like that?

The seventh in row 4 is pi of course.

The eighth in row row 6 looks like a particular kind of way of drawing sugar molecules in chemistry. I forget the name of that kind of molecule drawing. Normally the atoms are written at the ends of the lines. Likewise with the fourth symbol in the first row.

The second in the third row is an Ohm, which means something in the study of electrical circuits in physics...it means resistance, or current, or something.

Third in second row has an Iron Cross (German symbol) with an L below it...eighth in fourth row looks like a butt...below the butt is a galaxy...eighth in seventh row might be an upside down Roman numeral 6...fifth in third row reminds of me the phrase "keep it on the QT" which means "keep it quiet" or "keep it on the down low".

Seventh in sixth row looks like some kind of alchemical symbol, or a heiroglyph. Seventh in eighth row reminds me of pi/pie again.

The fish in the second in the second row reminds me of Christianity, especially since it's been stated that the orientation of that fish is not important (normally it faces to the right).

Several of those symbols look like Chinese characters, but I don't know any Chinese. At least one has a heraldry symbol but I don't know much about heraldry either.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Several of those symbols look like Chinese characters, but I don't know any Chinese. At least one has a heraldry symbol but I don't know much about heraldry either.

While I certainly haven't put as much effort in as you (well done on that 🙂) I'd like to chip and and say that the first one (on b8, so to speak) means "wo" which means "I" or "me" (thank you to my girlfriend for that one) and the second one (b3) means "xiang" as in xiangqi - Chinese chess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi Offers further insight into that meaning.

Thanks! Both of you! We haven't been getting too far so everything helps.

Did you check out the other art on his site? It is vibrant, refrences many different things and shows a sense of humor....I suspect this puzzle and I will be together for a while...😕

Originally posted by Aynat
http://www.danderoux.com/Murals/composite.html


This puzzle is on/in the wall of the new high in Juneau Alaska. The 4 center squares are lit from behind. The artist/coder is Dan DeRoux. The only hint given is green.

Help! ?

It looks like it may be a hell of a tough nut to crack. I have a few thoughts, but I don't know if they're very helpful.

The clue "green" could mean just about anything. A couple of ideas are that perhaps the message is supposed to be some sort of an ecologically related thing. Or perhaps you are supposed to start reading or decyphering with the grasshopper symbol.

b6 is the capital greek omega and is used in electronics as the symbol for Ohms, the unit of Resistance. It is also the last letter of the alphabet and has also been used to mean "the end". Or perhaps there's some other interpretation....

h7 is intriguing. In one picture 3 2 1 is written upside-down. However in the actual mural on the high school wall it is written as a reflection of the numbers above. Does this mean that the orientation is unimportant? Or was this an oversight that was corrected on the final version? Perhaps the literal meaning is "reflection"?

a2 looks like a quarter of a chess board, but it's backwards. Not sure if this means anything.

g4 looks an awful lot like waves or ripples, but the way they are in synch could also be used to describe coherent (laser) light.

h4 looks kind of like a galaxy or star cluster.

a6 looks kind of like V/A or velocity divided by acceleration....perhaps meaning "time". If so, then perhaps h1 means time divided by velocity (although it doesn't quite look right) meaning 1/acceleration....which the artist might mean as "slowing down" although that wouldn't be mathematically correct.

a7 looks an awful lot like the units of Magnetic Flux Density (Wb/m^2) although it isn't written exactly right. Again though, I have no idea how this relates to anything... ...though flux might also be used for the word "change" and perhaps that's where the artist is going with this.

f6 looks like Q divided by t, which in electronics is charge divided by time, generally related to the flow of electrical "current" or "amps".

It would sure be helpful if we knew the order in which to read these symbols. I wonder if perhaps the center is some clue as to how this is done. The hand symbol might mean "index"? It does seem as though those four squares are somehow isolated from the rest of the code--as though they don't really belong with it....but perhaps we are supposed to fill in the blank squares to connect it all together, though somehow that doesn't "feel" right to me.

EDIT: g5, capital pi is generally used in math as the symbol for a product series.

EDIT 2: h2 might be "greater than or equal to" or "less than or equal to" if you were reading around the edge....such as "h3 is less than or equal to h1" or "h1 is greater than or equal to h3".

The hand symbol on a4 is very similar to the hand symbol on d5. Perhaps this is to be taken as the starting point. The number zero also makes sense as a starting point.

a5 is what looks like a piano outline of a C-dominant 7 chord in second inversion. this could mean any number of things, and could be a direct quote from a piece... but i would suggest it either is a reference to the C7 square (a common way of naming that chord is just to say C7) OR a reference to the word "dominant"

Originally posted by Aetherael
a5 is what looks like a piano outline of a C-dominant 7 chord in second inversion. this could mean any number of things, and could be a direct quote from a piece... but i would suggest it either is a reference to the C7 square (a common way of naming that chord is just to say C7) OR a reference to the word "dominant"

I'm not a musician, but I'm kind of wondering if it could be even simpler than that. Some simple musical term. "Measure" perhaps? Or "notes".

Originally posted by leisurelysloth
I'm not a musician, but I'm kind of wondering if it could be even simpler than that. Some simple musical term. "Measure" perhaps?

this is definitely possible. as is something even simpler like "music" - i was offering the possibilities that non-musicians might not be aware of, and the possibility that it was pointing to a different square.

that being said, i think "measure" fits a lot better with the overwhelming physics feel of the rest of the puzzle and is a very plausible connection. though, C7 fits into the chess ideas too.

b4 is like a fleur-de-list with an added "T". Seems like it could be the word "list".

d8 is like the Phoenician character Samekh, which means pillar. e5 and g2 could also be Phoenician characters, e5 resembling the character He, meaning "window" and g2 the character Nun or "fish".

I'm no chemist, but I'm looking this up and I'm pretty sure g7 is Iodine.


EDIT: Could reference the word "I" since that is the symbol. Or could also refer to some usage of iodine such as a disinfectant. Or could reference the number 53...or...or...the list could actually be pretty long, depending on how obscure the artist chose to be with his clues. We are really in dire need of a clue as to what order in which to read these symbols so that we can start narrowing down meanings by piecing together phrases or something....

EDIT 2: Or it could have nothing to do with Iodine and could simply imply some other word like "Shell Model" or something. To get even more obscure, e8 "74" is the number of neutrons in the only stable isotope of Iodine....which may have nothing to do with anything. 😳

EDIT 3: Or perhaps more likely 74 could refer to "Tungsten" or "W" and if this is to be some sort of ecological rant "W" seems like a likely target. 63 might then refer to Europium or "Europe" or "Eu" or even pronounce "Eu" as "you" although if that were the case then I would have thought 92 would have been a more obvious choice. It's an odd way of writing 63 though, and this may be totally off the mark.

Originally posted by leisurelysloth
I'm no chemist, but I'm looking this up and I'm pretty sure g7 is Iodine.


EDIT: Could reference the word "I" since that is the symbol. Or could also refer to some usage of iodine such as a disinfectant. Or could reference the number 53...or...or...the list could actually be pretty long, depending on how obscure the artist chose to be with his ...[text shortened]... s an odd way of writing 63 though, and this may be totally off the mark.

Yeah, it is Iodine. You're right. He drew it in a strange way, but I guess it is logical. Electrons are placed in the ring corresponding to their energy level.