Quote Originally Posted by orioon View Post
you have to consider that the person who wrote the book had to be able to write german, which is a very though language. but curiously none of them has a german surname. bishop matches a bit, but it should be Bischof. it's not that unlikely that the Bishops have maybe german origins and immigrated to the US like many other german scientists. so it could be the case that Walters father wrote the book. Walter would have recognized it earlier and not because of an "y" if he wrote it himself. his mental state is not that bad at all.
Also there has been no single reference that Walter or Peter are able to speak German (which should have been the case if this is true, when Olivia went to Francfort/Frankfurt)

also they are reading from an english copy. therefore we can only explain who wrote the translation!
Interesting thoughts ...... however I would argue some points with you (in a friendly manner of course!):

Walter would have recognized it earlier and not because of an "y" if he wrote it himself. his mental state is not that bad at all.

I would say that his mental state really is all the bad. Jeff Pinker has commented that Walter does not know up from down, and there have been several comments by others involved with the show saying that Walter might not even be Walter, or have done the things he thinks he has done!

Also there has been no single reference that Walter or Peter are able to speak German (which should have been the case if this is true, when Olivia went to Francfort/Frankfurt)

Actually, this very episode could in fact hint that Peter is able to speak some German --- after all, he appeared able to translate the manuscript title without being told what the translation was. He also seemed to pronounce the German well (I am assuming). We also know that Walter remembers being in Germany previously (from his labnotes), so I would guess that Walter is at least familiar with the language on some level.

also they are reading from an english copy. therefore we can only explain who wrote the translation!

This raises an interesting question I'm not sure has been answered yet on this forum (if it has, forgive me) ---- which came first, the German version or the English version? I would guess the German did, since Jones' cell goes by the name ZFT, and not DTTP ....