AN  ASSESSMENT  OF  THE  PROBABILITIES  INVOLVED  IN  ARRIVING  AT  STRUCTURED INFORMATION  FROM   RANDOM  INPUT

In order to repeat the findings contained within the three couplets of verse on the Stratford monument, the following conditions are necessary, and must be met if the requirements of chance are to be satisfied. Although initially I have put my own considered estimates against each condition, anyone is at liberty to vary them according to properly conducted empirical research. But, whatever refinement is made to this present estimate, it is unlikely to alter the enormity of the resulting probability value.

            1                    Each text is limited to 225 letters. (The number of letters used to compose the inscription)

2                    The text must contain, or hint at, some form of challenge. [1 / 100]  (E.g: "Read If You Can . . . ")

3                    The first syllables of adjacent words must spell, or translate into, an identifiable person who is readily associated with a number or numbers. [1 / 1000]  (SUMma VElocium RErum = I Am Vere - 17th Earl of Oxford)

4                    And an Equi-Distant Letter Skip, employing one of those numbers, or its multiple, must produce a grammatical and meaningful sentence. [1 / 10 000]  (34 EDLS produces "So Test Him, I Vow He Is De Vere")

5                    That sentence must contain 10% or better of the available letters. [1 / 1 000 000]   (E.g. 23 letters have been used for this sentence.)

6                    The sentence can only be accepted if it is composed of words clustered together. [1 / 100 000 000]  (Clusters are important in decoding because they indicate an intelligent intention.)

7                    The name found in (3) above must also be repeated in the sentence.
[1 / 10 000 000 000].  (I Am Vere - So Test Him, I Vow He Is De Vere).

8                    Both versions of that name must be connected on the grid.  [1 / 100 000 000 000]   (See grid)

9                    This derived sentence must then be directly or indirectly anchored to a single  line.
[1 / 1 000 000 000 000].  (E.g. The hidden message branches out from Line 6 ).

            The accumulated probability value, taking all these constraints into consideration, is estimated to be in the region of one chance in a trillion.

Why is the result such a large number? Because the more conditions there are, the more exclusive is the result, and therefore the more difficult it becomes to achieve success by chance alone. And since each of these conditions is required to reflect the original design of the two encryptions, the probability that they all unite together by chance is so exceedingly small as to be close to zero, and zero is the measure of impossibility.

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