Q

[Benjamin G. Sayre]

Here's a technical/lit. crit. question (if such combination is 
possible...):

Okay, now I want to ask a question about a potential strategy for
determining whether an author has penned a particular piece of writing or
not, irrespective of whether the author says this is true or not.

I have been told by someone who works with computers that there is an
algorithm which can be used to determine such a thing.  Given a sample of
writing (whatever might qualify as a useful example), this algorithm
supposedly can indicate whether or not another sample of writing was
composed by the same author.  The person that told me about this said she
recalled hearing that it had been used to try to settle issues over
whether Chaucer wrote all of the _Canterbury Tales_ or something.

Does this algorithm exist, and if so does it work?  I need to ask because
I have no idea and I wouldn't really want to get to know computers well
enough to find out.


Ben