MIND GAMES
Not quite an easy thing
Aditya Rishi

Imagine the word "nnn" presenting itself in a cryptograph to the person for whom the cipher is designed, and who has the key-phrase. What is he to do with such a word?

"In any of the ordinary books upon Algebra will be found a very concise formula for ascertaining the number of arrangements in which m letters may be placed, taken n at a time. A cipher can be written where innumerable combinations may be made from these letters (there may be up to 10 n's in a coded message in some cases). Yet, unless it occurs otherwise by accident, the correspondent receiving the cipher would have to write down all these combinations before attaining the word intended; and even when he had written these, he would be inexpressibly perplexed in selecting the word designed from the vast number of other words arising in the course of the permutation," writes Edgar Allan Poe.

"To obviate, therefore, the exceeding difficulty of deciphering this species of cryptograph, it becomes necessary that some order should be agreed upon by the parties corresponding — some order in reference to which characters representing more than one letter are to be read. It may be agreed, for example, that the first time an i occurs in the cipher, it is to be understood as representing that character which stands against the first i in the key-phrase; that the second time an i occurs it must be supposed to represent that letter which stands opposed to the second i in the key-phrase," he says.

However, it will be evident, upon inspection, that the chief has inflicted upon us a cryptograph in which no order has been preserved; in which many characters, respectively, stand, at absolute random, for many others.

"Often, in the case of two individuals of acknowledged equality as regards ordinary mental efforts, it will be found that, while one cannot unriddle the commonest cipher, the other will scarcely be puzzled by the most abstruse. In such investigations, the analytical ability is forcibly called into action; and, for this reason, cryptographic solutions might with great propriety be introduced into academies, as the means of giving tone to the most important of the powers of mind." says Poe.

In old issues of Alexander's Weekly Messenger (1839) and Graham's Magazine (1841), one would find absorbing ciphers solved by Edgar Allan Poe, who conducted his own cryptographic challenge in these publications. Mohit Rodeja, like Poe, loves to create puzzles, and Ravneet Kotwal, like Poe, loves to solve these. He has taken ARABIAN NIGHTS to be a cipher and solved it to show that Sesame "is in little Qom (Qom is in Iran)" or "Lil Wolf Forest". (Write at The Tribune or adityarishi99@yahoo.co.in)