WORD2NUM means:
Any method or procedure that converts any word or group of letters into a unique integer.
Given the method and the integer, one can figure out the word. Not all integers correspond to a word.
A specific procedure might work only with a specific alphabet, but with slight modification could be made to work with another alphabet.

To decipher this message, you need to figure out what WORD2NUM procedure I used.

First here is a partial "Rosetta Stone".
ALL = 13737
YOUR = 1618515
ARE = 13946
BELONG = 689654284
TO = 1068
US = 1108
WHAT = 1515413
YOU = 44958
SAY = 36682
MAIN = 1040063
SCREEN = 1714486703
TURN = 1392899
ON = 887

Here is the ciphertext:
831805 21303239 48023009 48023009 1235714990931 17741 16438 48023009 23842631010 48023009 370 1086220895 52925280 17741 13993 891 926381 1008910850 13737 1618515 527198 13946 689654284 1068 1108 38112134

(In reply to re: Procedure still eludes... (hint) by Charlie)

Ahhh, is that why the word "base" is missing from the Rosetta stone?  A clue perhaps to the solution.

Another comment on the Rosetta stone word choices is the appropriateness of numbers of words of certain lengths...one of the reasons I think Larry did such a good job with this problem.

I tried a very simple approach, shown here for two-letter words.

A*(letter value 1) + B*(letter value 2) + C = cipher word

Which means three unknowns for the two-letter word formula.  As luck (or design) would have it, there are 3, two letter words in the Rosetta stone.

This yielded A=36, B = 1, C = 333.

A similar process for three-letter words yields 4 unknowns and, whattaya know, 4 three-letter words.  This yielded A=1296, B=36, C=1, D=11997.

The pattern starts to become clear.  1296=36^2.  11997=333*36+9.  This then led back to 333=9*36+9. 

PS.  If you realized that "base" was missing from the Rosetta stone and found it's value in the message, you could solve for parameters for four-letter words as well.

Edited on July 18, 2005, 2:19 pm

Posted by Bob Smith on 2005-07-18 13:41:05