Code Cracking
by Malcolm St. Clair
Today in Advanced Algebra I the seventh grade boys put their math to good use (for once), and began their careers as code breakers. Mr. Bourdin encrypted a quotation as a string of numbers between 1 and 26, each corresponding to a letter of the alphabet. But it was not so simple as it appeared: The solver first had to discover the “key” that would allow him to transform each number using mathematical operations before translating it into a letter. The first boy to correctly write the quotation as an English sentence would win a special—nay, priceless—twelve-sided die.
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Today in Advanced Algebra I the seventh grade boys put their math to good use (for once), and began their careers as code breakers. Mr. Bourdin encrypted a quotation as a string of numbers between 1 and 26, each corresponding to a letter of the alphabet. But it was not so simple as it appeared: The solver first had to discover the “key” that would allow him to transform each number using mathematical operations before translating it into a letter. The first boy to correctly write the quotation as an English sentence would win a special—nay, priceless—twelve-sided die.
The boys worked frantically to decode the quotation. Progress was made, but the cryptographer had a trick up his sleeve. The numbers translated to Latin! An additional step of translating to English was necessary. Congratulations to Marshall M., who recognized the quotation half-way through decoding, and was able to submit the first correct answer. Overall, this was a cracker-jack team; they could have broken Enigma in half the time it took Alan Turing.
If you would like to try it for yourself, please see the images. The final image contains the solution (in Latin).
