Pedro Crespo, Grupo Decoro
HAVANA, August – I recently read an interesting article titled "The Hidden Codes in the Bible" and it got me to thinking: Would there be a hidden code in our ration book?
The article, published in Amanecer by Ricardo Guerra, explains that experts applying sophisticated search techniques and high-powered computers have found hidden information in the Bible about events that happened centuries after the Book was written.
So I thought: Imagine being able to know a month in advance when we are going to get a half pound of oil, or a bar of soap, or whether we will getour whole allotment of kerosene to cook with!
With the extravagant idea buzzing in my mind I went to see my friend Arturo, an excellent statistician and mathematician and an expert computer programmer, to propose to him that we break the code, if one were hiding in our ration book I found him where he usually works when he is not teaching
computing: selling avocados in front of the bakery. At a good price, too.
Arturo has always been a man of broad vision and as soon as I proposed my idea he said: "Eight o'clock tonight at my house. If there is a code in the ration book, we'll break it, rest assured."
Imagine our surprise when on the first try, after converting the text into a block of 14,516 letters and taking as our first keyword "fish" the computer spit out: 1999, June, yellow jack, five small cans. Indeed, on June 5, 1999, we had been able to buy for the first time the selfsame
fish in cans. But the ration books had been issued the previous December! So hidden in there but ineluctably registered was an event that would happen six months later. I still shudder when I think about it.
The computer we are using for our work went down after this first result, so we haven't been able to continue our promising research, but we are committed not to rest until we shed light on this strange occurrence.
Versión original en español
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