Two Centuries On, a Cryptologist Cracks a Presidential Code

News Type: Event — Seeded on Fri Jul 3, 2009 7:06 PM EDT

Article Source: Wall Street Journal

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.

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4.6

{"commentId":8012753,"authorDomain":"Wheel"}

Wheel

good seed, very interesting. I hope you won't mind, I cross-linked this to a related seed about a code the CIA can't break.

{"commentId":8012753,"threadId":"618928","contentId":"2995671","authorDomain":"Wheel"}

3 votes

#1 - Fri Jul 3, 2009 7:37 PM EDT

{"commentId":8013472,"authorDomain":"djd"}

djd

Don't mind at all. Thanks Wheel.

{"commentId":8013472,"threadId":"618928","contentId":"2995671","authorDomain":"djd"}

3 votes

#1.1 - Fri Jul 3, 2009 8:13 PM EDT

{"commentId":8018709,"authorDomain":"syntactictree"}

Syntactic Tree

Wow. Absolutely fascinating. What a wonderful seed! I intend to reread it tomorrow, as I understood very little.

Now, if that was due to the late hour, then rereading when I'm rested tomorrow might help.

On the other hand, if it's due to my stupidity, which I fear it might be, rereading will just be a waste of my time. =)

{"commentId":8018709,"threadId":"618928","contentId":"2995671","authorDomain":"syntactictree"}

3 votes

#2 - Sat Jul 4, 2009 2:01 AM EDT

{"commentId":8020121,"authorDomain":"baw01183"}

TheHermit-1075885

Great seed djd, Thanks!

{"commentId":8020121,"threadId":"618928","contentId":"2995671","authorDomain":"baw01183"}

1 vote

#3 - Sat Jul 4, 2009 6:58 AM EDT

{"commentId":8026130,"authorDomain":"jwms"}

Jeffrey Merrill

Now, that was interesting!!

{"commentId":8026130,"threadId":"618928","contentId":"2995671","authorDomain":"jwms"}

3 votes

#4 - Sat Jul 4, 2009 3:49 PM EDT

{"commentId":8058688,"authorDomain":"inghar2004"}

gladbutterfly

Fascinating stuff, djd. Good seed.

{"commentId":8058688,"threadId":"618928","contentId":"2995671","authorDomain":"inghar2004"}

2 votes

#5 - Mon Jul 6, 2009 4:27 PM EDT

{"commentId":8060420,"authorDomain":"djd"}

djd

Thanks for all the comments on this one folks. I found the whole thing fascinating.

{"commentId":8060420,"threadId":"618928","contentId":"2995671","authorDomain":"djd"}

2 votes

#6 - Mon Jul 6, 2009 5:54 PM EDT

{"canLink":false,"threadId":"618928","isPrivate":false}

DJD

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Two Centuries On, a Cryptologist Cracks a Presidential Code

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