Posted on 07/01/2009 7:56:51 PM PDT by Pontiac
For more than 200 years, buried deep within Thomas Jefferson's correspondence and papers, there lay a mysterious cipher -- a coded message that appears to have remained unsolved. Until now.
The cryptic message was sent to President Jefferson in December 1801 by his friend and frequent correspondent, Robert Patterson, a mathematics professor at the University of Pennsylvania. President Jefferson and Mr. Patterson were both officials at the American Philosophical Society -- a group that promoted scholarly research in the sciences and humanities -- and were enthusiasts of ciphers and other codes, regularly exchanging letters about them.
There is no evidence that Jefferson, or anyone else for that matter, ever solved the code. But Jefferson did believe the cipher was so inscrutable that he considered having the State Department use it, and passed it on to the ambassador to France, Robert Livingston.
The cipher finally met its match in Lawren Smithline, a 36-year-old mathematician. Dr. Smithline has a Ph.D. in mathematics and now works professionally with cryptology, or code-breaking, at the Center for Communications Research in Princeton, N.J., a division of the Institute for Defense Analyses.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
What did the message say? He’d provide the beer if the other dude got the chicks?
Fo’ shizzle, ma nizzle.
What the h*** does that mean? Break it! I dare ya’!
“Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.”
Interesting that there are math magicians with enough time on their hands to study 200 year old letters.
> Amazing that a code could survive more than two hundred years unbroken.
What about the Da Vinci Code? We Freemasons have been keeping that one secret for thousands of years. /s
"In Congress, July Fourth, one thousand seven hundred and seventy six. A declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. When in the course of human events..."
ping
ping
Ping
You got me there!
“...time on their hands to study 200 year old letters.”
From the article: “Dr. Smithline has a Ph.D. in mathematics and now works professionally with cryptology, or code-breaking, at the Center for Communications Research in Princeton, N.J., a division of the Institute for Defense Analyses.”
Not quite ‘time on his hands.’ It is a critical part of our Defense intelligence.
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Hear Ye!
FReeper Convention Ticket Drawing!!
All NEW monthlies of $10 or more submitted by July 31 that include the words “FReeper Convention Ticket Drawing” in the comment section will be included in a drawing for a Freeper Convention ticket!! The winner can use the ticket for himself or give it away to another FReeper!!
Hope to see you in DC!!
45 posted on Wednesday, July 01, 2009 12:41:31 PM by Jim Robinson (Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jimrobfr)
What penmanship!
Buy more Cheerios!
There are other older unsolved codes: http://elonka.com/UnsolvedCodes.html
Thanks for this fascinating post!
“There are other older unsolved codes: http://elonka.com/UnsolvedCodes.html";
These codes that are extreme in difficulty defeat their purpose except for super high level single time uses. If a code is going to be useful for moving people and supplies along from point A to point B, it has to be easy to use, quick to use and simple enough to be followed by lots of people, some of whom aren’t well educated.
The codes I’ve encountered were fairly simple codes with numbers or letters pertaining to grids - each block in the grid contained one or two letters and the user would “build” the word. But, the bottom line was they were easy and quick to use - they had to be because time was at a premium and you couldn’t file the info away for two centuries. An answer was needed immediately.
The coding of Thomas Jefferson is the basis for a very good novel by Brad Thor, entitled “The Last Patriot”.
It’s a real page-turner
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.