Codes and Ciphers of the Past
Social Science/History | Available (Membership Required)
For as long as there has been writing, there have been attempts to invent ways in which messages can be correctly read only by the intended recipient. Codes substitute whole words with other words or symbols, for which one needs large codebook "dictionaries" of the substitutions. Ciphers transform individual letters into other letters or symbols, and one needs only the transformation procedure, which often can be memorized. We will look at examples of historically important codes and ciphers, and see how they have become increasingly sophisticated. Finally, we will look at procedures used to break them, and try our hand at some of the more simple ones.
Bill Blaker
Bill Blaker is retired after a 45-year career as a research scientist and university professor. He has received teaching awards from Virginia Tech and Furman University. He has taught university courses in general science, biology, anatomy and physiology, biochemistry, neuroscience, English composition, statistics, and philosophy. Now, he teaches anything he finds interesting.