Photo by V. Miller
July 14, 2004
Who Penned the Bard?
Who Penned the Bard?
Ian Cummings, 15, Clearfield, Utah
Finalist, Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge, 2003
Project background: Ian's father shared an article with him that discussed how the language of a computer file could be determined without opening it. The article suggested applying a compression algorithm to the file. A compression algorithm shrinks a file by either reducing or eliminating all repetitive data. In a comparison, a small text file of unknown origin is attached to the original, known file and the resulting file is recompressed. In a comparison, the more alike the two original files are, the smaller the resulting compressed file is.
The article noted that this technique could also be used to determine authorship of a file. In this case, the best compression ratio would be obtained in a comparison of two works by the same author. Ian was interested in testing this technique while trying to answer the question, "Who wrote Shakespeare's works?"
Tactics and results: Ian collected texts representing many authors from the Internet and ran them through a compression algorithm to see if he could identify the author without looking at the file. This worked for all the examples he tried.
Ian's second test was to see if he could answer the question regarding Shakespeare's work. His research indicated that there's doubt regarding the authorship of Shakespeare's work and that Christopher Marlowe, a contemporary, had the strongest claim. Ian analyzed samples of writings by Shakespeare, Marlowe, and other authors.
After applying the compression algorithm technique, Ian believes that his tests provide strong evidence that the plays attributed to William Shakespeare were actually written by Christopher Marlowe.
Read the latest science fair news
Get a science fair tip
Browse a list of science fair topics
Talk Back:
Do you have any comments about this ScienceFairZone? Send them
to us using the form below.
|
SNK RSS Feed 
