GeekDad Puzzle of the Week Solution: Cryptographic Thanksgiving Corn
- 7:00 AM
OK, everyone, wake up from your self-induced food coma and pay attention, because it’s time to announce a winner of and provide a solution to the Puzzle of the Week. First, let’s rehash the original puzzle, which was to decode these corny riddles and provide solutions:
- no oe em au yi ue gk la be dw pn wi dy iz tn ah ki dw pn wi dy mj oe df?
- za eg ea at md ku rm wg up lz mh ds up nh?
- za na tn xl rl dl ay ds da ds hk uo de cr am da wc cl jd nv?
Now this looks like a mess but I did provide two clues: The words Miles Standish and Play Fair were in bold. That was a hint that the code was created using the Playfair cipher and the key “Miles Standish.” What’s the Playfair cipher you ask? It was created by uber-geek Charles Wheatstone — yes, the one the Wheatstone Bridge was named after — who was also the inventor of the stereoscope and the English concertina.
To decode the message first make a 5 x 5 matrix. Start by filling in the key word skipping duplicate letters. Then fill the remaining letters in alphabetical order, skipping the letter Q, you could also skip the letter J and substitute all J’s in the message with the letter I. This is the matrix for the puzzle:
The decoding rules are as follows:
- If a pair of letters appear in the same row then replace them with the letters to their left (AH becomes TD)
- If a pair of letters are in the same column then replace them with the letters above them (MK becomes BV)
- If a pair of letters are in different rows adn columns form a rectangle with those letters at the corners and replce with the opposite corners on the same row. Using the illustration below ON becomes PA
- Ignore any X’s that make no sense in the decoded message. They were used to pad the text
The decoded riddles wit their answers are as follows:
Q: April Showers Bring May Flowers, What Do May Flowers Bring?
Q: Why Did The Turkey Cross The Road?
A: He wanted to prove he wasn’t chicken. (I also accepted “It was the chickens day off.”)
Q: What Happened When The Turkey Got Into A Fight?
A: He got the stuffing Knocked out of him.
This week’s winner, chosen randomly out of all the correct answers, is Lee Reynolds, who gets a $50.00 ThinkGeek Gift Certificate, which is s great way to say Happy Holidays to yourself. The rest of our readers will get the new December savings code to get $10.00 off your next $50.00 order at ThinkGeek: GEEKDAD22DC
Come back on Monday so Garth can get your week started with one of his particularly gruesome puzzles. Really! There are like four undead goats tied to his cubicle and he won’t tell me why. I really hope it’s for the puzzle and not piñatas our holiday party. Ewwwww.