Code?

[escortcab]

PistonHeaders.

I have a problem. I have been given a challenge of finding out how to decode a puzzle, and I have subsequently got to a certain place, but can go no further.

If have deciphered the quote "God may not play dice with the universe but something strange is going on with the prime numbers" by Paul Erdos; along with the numbers 7 and 13.

I know he is famed with maths with the prime numbers, and both 7 and 13 are both them, but I cannot get any further than this.

I need to know if there is a puzzle deciphering a number of five letter strings with information above.

I have googled the hell out of it, to no avail. I have also started to use shift 7 cypher but cannot think where the 13 would come into it.

Can anyone glean just a little bit of helpful info from the details above to come up with some sort of solution or part of please.

Thanks in advance.

[PugwasHDJ80]

what was the original puzzle?

[escortcab]

PugwasHDJ80 said:

what was the original puzzle?

[Magic919]

Not really an Erdos quote if it matters. Carl Pomerance said it and it was based on the famous Enstein quote.

[4737 Carlin]

escortcab said:

PistonHeaders.

I have a problem. I have been given a challenge of finding out how to decode a puzzle, and I have subsequently got to a certain place, but can go no further.

If have deciphered the quote "God may not play dice with the universe but something strange is going on with the prime numbers" by Paul Erdos; along with the numbers 7 and 13.

I know he is famed with maths with the prime numbers, and both 7 and 13 are both them, but I cannot get any further than this.

I need to know if there is a puzzle deciphering a number of five letter strings with information above.

I have googled the hell out of it, to no avail. I have also started to use shift 7 cypher but cannot think where the 13 would come into it.

Can anyone glean just a little bit of helpful info from the details above to come up with some sort of solution or part of please.

Thanks in advance.

It's just Challenge 1 we're talking about, right?

How did you decipher the quote "God may not play dice with the universe but something strange is going on with the prime numbers" along with the numbers 7 and 13?

And where did you get that quote from?


To save anyone else manually copying out the Hex string, the hex in Challenge 1 is ...

50 72 69 6d 65 20 6e 75
6d 62 65 72 73 20 61 72
65 20 61 6d 61 7a 69 6e
67 20 74 68 69 6e 67 73 
2c 20 6e 6f 20 70 61 74 
74 65 72 6e 20 61 6e 64 
20 69 6e 66 69 6e 69 74 
65 20 69 6e 20 71 75 61 
6e 74 69 74 79 2e 20 56 
65 72 79 20 75 73 65 66 
75 6c 21 20 4c 65 20 63
68 69 66 66 72 65 20 69 
6e 64 e9 63 68 69 66 66
72 61 62 6c 65 20 75 74
69 6c 69 73 65 20 50 49 
4e 45 41 50 50 4c 45

which tranlates to ASCII as ...

Hex said:

Prime numbers are amazing things, no pattern and infinite in quantity. Very useful! Le chiffre indéchiffrable utilise PINEAPPLE

"Le chiffre indéchiffrable" indicates a vigenere cipher.
I presume PINEAPPLE will be the cypher key.


(I presume you're already way ahead of me on this)

[escortcab]

4737 Carlin said:

"Le chiffre indéchiffrable" indicates a vigenere cipher.
I presume PINEAPPLE will be the cypher key.


(I presume you're already way ahead of me on this)

Yes m8, and that decrypt states the original quote and numbers.

Which will then in turn decipher the third challenge text code

[4737 Carlin]

4737 Carlin said:

"Le chiffre indéchiffrable" indicates a vigenere cipher.
I presume PINEAPPLE will be the cypher key.


(I presume you're already way ahead of me on this)

Oh I see! The text in Example 2 has been encrypted with the vigenere cipher and the keyword PINEAPPLE
and that decodes to

-- MESSAGE w/Key #1 = 'pineapple' ----------------
godmaysevennotplaydicewiththeuniversebutsomethingthirteenstrangeisgoi
ngonwiththeprimenumberspaulerdos


So what's in Example 3? Or is it just that one line shown in your photo?

[escortcab]

4737 Carlin said:

Oh I see! The text in Example 2 has been encrypted with the vigenere cipher and the keyword PINEAPPLE
and that decodes to

-- MESSAGE w/Key #1 = 'pineapple' ----------------
godmaysevennotplaydicewiththeuniversebutsomethingthirteenstrangeisgoi
ngonwiththeprimenumberspaulerdos


So what's in Example 3? Or is it just that one line shown in your photo?

There are other lines, but I expect the poster to put his private contact details up. So cant show the rest unfortunately.

[escortcab]

I am toying with JS 7/13 script, but could be way off.

I'm just not savy enough to work out the last script I don't think, and was needing help to get clues to crack it.

[4737 Carlin]

What is the forth letter in Example 3 ?

WSDLS ?
WSDTS ?
WSDIS ?

[escortcab]

4737 Carlin said:

What is the forth letter in Example 3 ?

WSDLS ?
WSDTS ?
WSDIS ?

WSDIS

[Some Gump]

4737 Carlin said:

What is the forth letter in Example 3 ?

WSDLS ?
WSDTS ?
WSDIS ?

So you can work out really clever things, but not read?! Love you really brainy types, great at hard stuff, useless at the basics

It's an I. I can tell you that with certainty, because you can see a T, but it has serifs. You can see an L, but it's serif is smaller and offset. I'd have forgiven J, Bu it would also have serifs on tha typeface.

As for the rest of it, my simple mind can't help - I'm just a chemist!

[4737 Carlin]

Some Gump said:

So you can work out really clever things, but not read?! Love you really brainy types, great at hard stuff, useless at the basics

It's an I. I can tell you that with certainty, because you can see a T, but it has serifs. You can see an L, but it's serif is smaller and offset. I'd have forgiven J, Bu it would also have serifs on tha typeface.

As for the rest of it, my simple mind can't help - I'm just a chemist!

Haha! You're right. Thanks.

[sebhaque]

Apologies for interrupting but threads like these are why I love PH

[Vitorio]

The 13 could be a simple ROT-13? Dont know where the seven would come into play though, taking every seventh letter out of 6x5 letters?

[austinsmirk]

again, just WOW, PH !!

Anyone remember a programme on Doris Day's son, trying to unlock his mother's secret coded letters ? he thought it would reveal her "lost" millions.

Lots of letter grids, which basically just said things like " I love you".

It would appear her millions were long gone alas for him.

[Jaska]

Can't help with actually cracking this - but if the quote was actually by Carl Pomerance then that threw up in my memory the erdos-bacon number link between them.

[From wiki]:

Hank Aaron, a baseball player, is jokingly said to have an Erd?s–Bacon number of 3, as he appeared in Summer Catch with Susan Gardner, and he and Erd?s both autographed the same baseball. The baseball originated due to a shared connection with mathematician Carl Pomerance. In 1974, Pomerance watched the baseball game on TV where Hank Aaron famously surpassed Babe Ruth's 714 home-run record, achieving a new record of 715. He noticed that the sum of the prime factors of 714 and 715 are the same number, 29, and published a related paper with two of his students, calling such consecutive integers Ruth-Aaron pairs. In late 1974, Paul Erd?s learned of the paper and wrote a letter to Pomerance, a first correspondence between the two which led to 21 joint publications. 21 years later, at the 1995 commencement, Emory University simultaneously granted Hank Aaron and Paul Erd?s honorary degrees. Carl Pomerance, a faculty member at the University of Georgia, attended the nearby event and asked both men to sign the baseball.

So given your clue was to do with prime numbers, could it be related to the sum of prime factors discovery?

[i.e. 7 + 13 = 20. Prime factors are 2x2x5. Tried some random things like taking the second and fifth letters of each segment and running it through an acronym solver - Gives you Arne Holst as an answer. But unless your end result is supposed to be an obscure norwegian bobsledder in the 1940's I'm out of luck!]

Edited by Jaska on Thursday 30th June 09:41

[escortcab]

Working on the same Theory of letter shift; to find the correct number to shift, I'm thinking of perhaps Pure number from 7 13?

Is that possible? I'm not clued up enough to work if it is or not.

Edit: nope, no matter what number letter shift to 26 there is no discernible text

Edited by escortcab on Thursday 30th June 10:57

[RobinOakapple]

austinsmirk said:

again, just WOW, PH !!

Anyone remember a programme on Doris Day's son, trying to unlock his mother's secret coded letters ? he thought it would reveal her "lost" millions.

Lots of letter grids, which basically just said things like " I love you".

It would appear her millions were long gone alas for him.

Why didn't he just ask her? She's still alive.

[Jaska]

On further searching, it could be Public-key encryption, where you use two primes to generate an e-number used to encrypt your message, where our two primes [p+q] would be 7 & 13...

So your N [p + q = N] would be 91. Phi is 72 [p-1]*[q-1]. Working out the e value and decrypting it is a bit beyond my knowledge though. good luck if you go down this route