superprismatic Posted September 18, 2009 Report Share Posted September 18, 2009 The letters of the first half of a message are added (mod 26) to the corresponding letters of the second half, using the values A=1, B=2, etc. The result is: 3 10 16 9 22 24 11 23 6 5 24 19 16 7 19 8 22 3 13 19 4 14 3 22 12 18 13 4 14 25 14 [/code]Read the message. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted September 18, 2009 Report Share Posted September 18, 2009 (edited) Does the following correctly exemplify the stated process? A scanner darkly a s c a n n e r d a r k l y 1 19 3 1 14 14 5 18 4 1 18 11 12 25 1+18 19+4 3+1 1+18 14+11 14+12 5+25 Encoded message: 19 23 4 19 25 26 4 Edit: forgot the mod 26 function Edited September 18, 2009 by Semper Rideo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 superprismatic Posted September 18, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 18, 2009 Does the following correctly exemplify the stated process? A scanner darkly a s c a n n e r d a r k l y 1 19 3 1 14 14 5 18 4 1 18 11 12 25 1+18 19+4 3+1 1+18 14+11 14+12 5+25 Encoded message: 19 23 4 19 25 26 4 Edit: forgot the mod 26 function Yes, except that the penultimate number in the encoded message should be a 0 instead of a 26. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted September 19, 2009 Report Share Posted September 19, 2009 So if i'm understanding this correctly to translate each number you need to unmod it, split it, decode it. so the first letter pair = 3 could be: 3(no mod) -> (1,2) -> (a,b) 29 (mod) -> (3,26) -> (d,z) . -> (4,25) -> (e,y) . -> ... -> ... . -> (14,15)-> (m,n) . -> ... -> ... . -> (26,3) -> (z,d) . (A1,A2) Message = A1....Z1A2....Z2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 superprismatic Posted September 19, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 19, 2009 So if i'm understanding this correctly to translate each number you need to unmod it, split it, decode it. so the first letter pair = 3 could be: 3(no mod) -> (1,2) -> (a,b) 29 (mod) -> (3,26) -> (d,z) . -> (4,25) -> (e,y) . -> ... -> ... . -> (14,15)-> (m,n) . -> ... -> ... . -> (26,3) -> (z,d) . (A1,A2) Message = A1....Z1A2....Z2 Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted September 19, 2009 Report Share Posted September 19, 2009 Some logical assumputions: 1. The letters Y and Z can be eliminated since the largest number is 25 which could potentially be A and X, 1 and 24, but nothing higher. 2. Possible letter combinations are based on the addends, for example, for the number 9, A can only be grouped with H and B can only be grouped with G. For the number 8 A can only get grouped with G and B can only be grouped with F. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 superprismatic Posted September 19, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 19, 2009 Some logical assumputions: 1. The letters Y and Z can be eliminated since the largest number is 25 which could potentially be A and X, 1 and 24, but nothing higher. 2. Possible letter combinations are based on the addends, for example, for the number 9, A can only be grouped with H and B can only be grouped with G. For the number 8 A can only get grouped with G and B can only be grouped with F. Actually, the arithmetic is done mod-26, so if the result is greater than or equal to 26, then 26 is subtracted. So, neither of your restriction rules apply. See Semper Rideo's post above. He gives a good example and only makes one minor mistake which I pointed out immediately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted September 20, 2009 Report Share Posted September 20, 2009 I have been thinking about this since it was posted. It seems to me that you could find a corresponding letter that would add up to each number given with any letter you randomly chose. The first number 3 for example; The first letter of the first half could be any letter lets say Q=17 which would have a corresponding letter L=12, 17+12=29 29-26=3. Or H=8, and U=21 8+21=29 29-26=3. Every other letter in the sequence would have a corresponding letter assigned to it in the same fashion. Meaning you could use any random words or sentence for the first half of the message. The problem is finding the one right combination of the hundreds of thousands of words that would generate a readable full message. With out fully finding the correct corresponding letters to the second half, ie I just made up the second half letters as actually figuring them out would not be a readable sentence anyway, I get the following... Example 1: "Green tomatoes are like purple yarn b/ajendotjvnwurmcfeutqpxdskeuskrt" Example 2: "To be or not to be? That is the question. G/vbeomcparwkgmwpctrbeosbfunfldr" My point being unless I am missing something, are there not just too many possible options for the first half of the message to get the whole thing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 superprismatic Posted September 20, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 20, 2009 I have been thinking about this since it was posted. It seems to me that you could find a corresponding letter that would add up to each number given with any letter you randomly chose. The first number 3 for example; The first letter of the first half could be any letter lets say Q=17 which would have a corresponding letter L=12, 17+12=29 29-26=3. Or H=8, and U=21 8+21=29 29-26=3. Every other letter in the sequence would have a corresponding letter assigned to it in the same fashion. Meaning you could use any random words or sentence for the first half of the message. The problem is finding the one right combination of the hundreds of thousands of words that would generate a readable full message. With out fully finding the correct corresponding letters to the second half, ie I just made up the second half letters as actually figuring them out would not be a readable sentence anyway, I get the following... Example 1: "Green tomatoes are like purple yarn b/ajendotjvnwurmcfeutqpxdskeuskrt" Example 2: "To be or not to be? That is the question. G/vbeomcparwkgmwpctrbeosbfunfldr" My point being unless I am missing something, are there not just too many possible options for the first half of the message to get the whole thing? This is really tough. But the actual text is made up of nearly all small words. So, I think the best strategy is to guess some common small words like "the", try it everywhere to see if anything interesting pops up in the other half. Once you get a few good hits, things snowball. That's the way I did it and it took me quite a while working on it sporadically. You could even write a program to try a list of common words and see if you get good letter combinations in the other half of the message. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted September 23, 2009 Report Share Posted September 23, 2009 "falty is easy won you is racing places widow or rely vast sat tack the back EU" ...too bad it doesn't make any bloody sense and "faulty" is misspelled - but I give up already. there must be hundreds of valid words that do fit the pattern - how to find the ones that make sense when strung together? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 superprismatic Posted September 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2009 "falty is easy won you is racing places widow or rely vast sat tack the back EU" ...too bad it doesn't make any bloody sense and "faulty" is misspelled - but I give up already. there must be hundreds of valid words that do fit the pattern - how to find the ones that make sense when strung together? You can be sure there will be no spelling mistakes in such a puzzle -- it would allow too much leeway. Also, nonsensical combinations of words should be thrown out. When I did this, I began with some pieces of possible text and then guessed at some sensible extensions. Needless to say, it took a long time to come up with something that began to make sense. As soon as I got some nice pieces, extending them got a little easier -- although still difficult. I know it's hard, but I suppose someone on this board will eventually come up with the right sentence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted September 27, 2009 Report Share Posted September 27, 2009 (edited) =IF(CODE(A3)<96+A1,CHAR(A1-CODE(A3)+192),CHAR(A1-CODE(A3)+218)) set on A1 is the moded number string, A3 is your guess at a letter in the first half, 1=a=CHAR(97), CODE(a)=97 Edited September 27, 2009 by Dawid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted September 30, 2009 Report Share Posted September 30, 2009 So, does Z = 0? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 superprismatic Posted September 30, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 30, 2009 So, does Z = 0? Yes, Z=0. Of course, if you used Z=26, it wouldn't matter because the arithmetic is done mod 26. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 plainglazed Posted September 30, 2009 Report Share Posted September 30, 2009 Certainly understandable if you do not care to answer... Are the two halves of the message split between words or within one word? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 superprismatic Posted September 30, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 30, 2009 Certainly understandable if you do not care to answer... Are the two halves of the message split between words or within one word? They are split within a word. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted September 30, 2009 Report Share Posted September 30, 2009 "Nostalgia is a longing for the place you would never dream of moving back to" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 superprismatic Posted September 30, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 30, 2009 "Nostalgia is a longing for the place you would never dream of moving back to" I knew someone would solve it! Nice (but difficult) going! That wraps up the Walter Penney puzzles. You guys solved all of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted October 6, 2009 Report Share Posted October 6, 2009 10 17 15 3 12 0 15 8 23 13 7 25 20 15 18 1 1 2 8 3 8 24 19 1 21 13 3 20 3 23 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Question
superprismatic
The letters of the first half of a
message are added (mod 26) to the
corresponding letters of the second
half, using the values A=1, B=2,
etc. The result is:
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