In "
Are we odd for liking this?" we were asked to decipher an encrypted message. Can you decipher this message too?
57249994402124186529762
56227185287614394317684
72245794427434367112219
38125347227414186714489
63634187664324288447732
(In reply to
answer by K Sengupta)
At the outset, we add the numbers in a given column and reduce the addition result in mod 26.
For example, in column 1 the sum of all the numbers is 26 and we obtain 0 by reducing 26 in mod 26. Let R(i) be the value obtained by reducing a the ith column sum to mod 26, then we must have:
i S(i)
1 0
2 0
3 13
4 15
5 4
6 21
7 12
8 1
9 18
10 0
11 1
12 18
13 9
14 20
15 8
16 13
17 5
18 20
19 9
20 3
21 0
22 0
23 0
Placing the addition results side by side we have:
0 0 13 15 4 21 12 1 18 0 1 18 9 20 8 13 5 20 9 3 0 0 0
Now, removing the 0's we have:
13 15 4 21 12 1 18 1 18 9 20 8 13 5 20 9 3
We now denote the letters by their respective positions in the alphabet. Thus, 1=a, 2=b, 3=c, ...., 25=y, and obtain "MODULAR ARITHMETIC" as the required decoded message.
Edited on April 3, 2008, 1:33 pm
Puzzle Solution
