liyahu Rips, one of the scientists who claimed to find a secret code in the Bible, died July 19 at the age of 75, The New York Times reported on Friday.
Born on December 12, 1948, in Latvia to Holocaust survivors, Rips was a math prodigy who began studying mathematics at the University of Latvia at the age of 16.
Five years later, he was committed to a mental health institution after trying to self-immolate near the university in protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. He was saved by some passersby, but was badly burnt.
He was at the institution for two years, during which he debunked the significant dimension subgroup conjecture mathematical proof. He was released in 1971 following a petition from the mathematics community and moved to Israel a year later where he received his doctorate from Hebrew University in 1975.
In 1994, Rips published a paper in the journal Statistical Science along with Yoav Rosenberg and Doron Witztum in which they claimed to have found a secret code in the Biblical book of Genesis.
Using a method they dubbed equidistant letter sequences, the paper’s writers said they had found the names and birthdates of several Jewish scholars who had lived thousands of years after the Bible was written.
The method involved taking all the words from the Torah and compressing them into a single strand of 304,805 letters.
A computerized search program then hunted for letters set a predetermined distance apart, and used them to form names and phrases with significance.
The paper inspired a book by Michael Drosnin who claimed he had found predictions of significant events in Genesis and the other four books of the Torah using the method.
In the book, Drosnin wrote that he had predicted the assassination of late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin a year before it happened, and had flown to Israel to warn him.
He also said he found predictions for the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the death of Princess Diana in 1997.
In 1997, Rips, Witztum, Rosenberg, and Drosnin won the Ig Nobel Prize which is awarded for unusual contributions that “make people laugh and then make them think.” The four were awarded the prize for the literature category.
When it was first published, Rips et al’s paper was met with both support and skepticism, but in 1999, a team of researchers led by Dr. Brendan McKay published a 45-page paper in Statistical Science debunking the method.
McKay also answered a challenge by Drosnin who said that when “my critics find a message about the assassination of a prime minister encrypted in Moby Dick, I’ll believe them.”
McKay subsequently published proof that he had used the same method to find references to the assassinations of Martin Luther King, JFK, Rabin, Abraham Lincoln, and the death of Princess Diana among others.
Over the years, Rips distanced himself from Drosnin’s book and subsequent works of Bible code-breakers who used the method, but continued to believe in his original work.
Rips was also known for his contribution to the geometric group theory and discovered the Rips Machine method that is used in the field.
Rips was survived by his wife, Dvorah, five children, and more than 30 grandchildren, according to The New York Times.
1 comment:
Simply because you’re a mathematical child prodigy doesn’t mean that you’re immune from availing yourself of logical fallacies to promote your oddball conclusions.
Eliyahu Rips was a crank who used his mathematical skills to promote silly arguments as demonstrated by Dr. Brendon McKay.
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