3 ms·
much younger, by comparison, but my favorite "early checksum" example is the Torah. Since every glyph in hebrew has a numerical value, the sum of all rows and
by hprotagonist 8y ago
much younger, by comparison, but my favorite "early checksum" example is the Torah.
Since every glyph in hebrew has a numerical value, the sum of all rows and the sum of all columns of a page can be computed. When making a copy, if these values don't match the master, that page is cut out and burned. There's been an effectively zero error rate in copies of the Torah for the last ~3,000 years.
- genericone 8y agoI did not know about this, so this is why the Jewish people can have good certainty about how far the origins of their religion indeed go. Very fascinating stuff, I learned something new today.
- hprotagonist 8y agowith occasional empirical evidence, no less: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/science/ancient-sea-scrolls-bible.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/science/ancient-sea-scrol...
- opportune 8y agoWell, the error rate since the written Torah was written may be low, but the Torah was already describing events that had occurred hundreds or even thousands of years before
- empath75 8y agoMore like 1200 years. They didn’t start the checksums until ~900
- hprotagonist 8y agoAh, you're right. I flipped BCE/CE on when the Masoretes existed. IIRC, though, most of the texts of the dead sea scrolls, which are much older, were effectively identical too -- see the En Gedi copy of Leviticus from ~ 300 CE which was word-for-word identical.
- HarryHirsch 8y agoWell, yes. People had developed cuneiform by 2500 BC. Kings and princes had book collections a few centuries after, and it's not surprising that in their scriptoria they developed proofreading methods.