We discussed in class a little bit yesterday the correlation between a literary system and a numeracy system. As soon as writing developed, written numbers were used to keep track of business transactions and other records. In fact, most artifacts that we have today are records of accounting.
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| The oldest tablet found in Europe, written in the Mycenaean Linear B System. It records business transactions. |
But can letters and numbers have other correlating purposes? Of course, they both can be used to create a code, or a system of secrecy or multiple representation in which certain words, letters, or numbers are assigned different meanings.
The Ancient Greeks, for example, actually used there letters as symbols of numbers. Their alphabet served a dual purpose. It communicated thoughts and ideas, but also stood as representation of a number in many cases. Today, we still use letters of the Greek alphabet to represent numbers which we plug into formulas (or mathematical codes) such as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Phi and Pi.
Similarly, the Roman alphabet, or the Latin alphabet, which is the most recognized alphabet in the world today, evolved from a Western variety of the Greek alphabet. This alphabet, along with Arabic numerals, is the basis of what is perhaps the most common code today, Morse Code. This code is unique in that it can be used through almost any kind of medium; sound, written, visual.
Just for fun, I created my own code using numbers as letters. See if you can decipher what this says and you'll discover an interesting fact about me!
23...15.1...6.19.26.15.8.19.18...8.3...21.3.6.18.3.2...16...22.23.2.17.25.26.19.13...
Woh Misa. You totally threw me off for a minute but I figured it out. I think this brings up something that is COMPLETELY fascinating. Encoding our language. After my AP calc class in high school we had a few weeks to kill and we went into some multivariable calculus and encryption. The encryption stuff just blew my mind. Its funny how wo spend so much time making information available through new media, but now it has become TOO available so we have to find out the longest most convoluted ways of hiding it. Some of the techniques that your bank uses to hide your information are so complicated that even with super computers it is virtually impossible to crack the code unless they can figure out key (which itself is pretty cryptic unless you know the way in which it was encoded). With your example - I assumed first that 1=A but quickly realized that the key must be different. When I figured out the key 1=?, it was pretty easy to read the message.
ReplyDeleteThat looks suspiciously like the telephone code. I am working on decoding it. Ciphers are very cool. If people are interested we should do a group one about ciphers and codes. It would be a good forum discussion.
ReplyDeleteOk it was not the standard phone code, though I was tempted to run it through a second iteration to try and force a meaning. kind of like when you send gibberish through google translate until you get something normal out. It is kind of a fun game.
ReplyDeleteI thought an interesting point to bring up was the classic example of Navajo code talkers. There was nested encryption there. The technology, radio, was an encrypted signal. The code talkers had a code with in their language. And the whole thing was linguistically encrypted because noone else in the world could speak Navajo.
Your topic ties in very nicely to the class discussion of the secret.
I thought of navajo code talkers too! it is ultimate code because it was natural for them and since it was oral no one could keep up and try and decipher it.... another interesting way to learn about the differences and similarities between oral and written knowledge...
ReplyDeleteThe Navajo code talkers rock!! Just had to throw that out there. I liked your comment Mike too, that we do make information so readily available, and there are so many ways to find out that information, and you can get just about anything if you have the money for it, that the government and other institutions do go to a lot of trouble to hide specific information. One day, I feel like, we will have to quit putting sensitive information on computers, because there will always be a hacker that can get in for the wrong reasons, and we will have to go back to an oral, in-person system of spying. That would be weird, huh? Just a cool thought.
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