Reveal a part of the world's most mysterious book

The book contains the language that no one on the planet can read since the beginning of the 15th century, American scientists claim.

Drawings and letters in a page of the "Voynich Manuscript".(Photo: typepad.com)

Livescience said, ' Voynich Manuscript ', the name of one of the most mysterious books on the planet, is written in a language no one can read and find anywhere. Many studies show that characters in books actually belong to a language, not arbitrary characters. Some experts say the book is written in cryptography to hide the true content. This is a fairly common trick in the early 17th century.

The book consists of 250 pages of leather, also contains many drawings of objects such as trees, ancient laboratory equipment, astrological symbols. There are even many women illustrations in the bath. All the trees drawn in the book do not seem to exist on Earth, because the scientists have not identified the identity of any of them. Some plants have very strange leaves and roots.

" Nobody knows the content of the Voynich manuscript, but it seems to cover many topics related to chemistry, " said Greg Hodgins, an expert in chemistry and archeology at the University of Arizona in the US.

Because the book is made of leather, the method of measuring radioactive carbon -14 (C-14) can tell its age. This method achieves almost absolute accuracy when applied to objects dating to less than 60 thousand years.

When animals and plants die, the amount of C-14 decays at a certain speed. Scientists can base on the decay rate of C-14 to calculate the time that has passed since they died.

Hodgins's group took 4 strips of thin leather and was about 2.5 cm long from some pages of the book and washed away the dust, the fat (in the sweat of one's hands). Then they burned them to remove everything, except C and its isotopes. Finally they measured C14 concentration in ash. The results show that the book was written in the early 15th century, a century earlier than many scientists predicted.

The " Voynich manuscript " first appeared in the late years of the 16th century. Roman emperor Rudolph II, who loved the collection of antiques, bought Voynich in Prague (present-day Czech Republic). After Rudolph II died, many nobles and scholars took turns taking possession of the book. Later, the Voynich manuscript disappeared at the end of the 17th century. In 1912, the book reappeared and was owned by the American book dealer Wilfrid Voynich. Since then, the name " Voynich Manuscript " began to be set for the book. After Voynich died, the book was donated to Yale University in the United States.

The age of the 'Voynich Manuscript ' can help scientists find more clues in the study of the book. However, its content will probably never be found. The latest computer programs and the world's best cryptography experts are powerless when decoding the book. Perhaps the ' key ' for experts to decode the book has long been destroyed. Even so, the scientific community hopes future technologies can help the next generation to bring the secret of the " Voynich Manuscript " to light.