How One Mathematician was Sucked into Breaking Ciphers

Codebreaking is addictive. For some people, once they’ve started, they can’t stop.

“This was John Wallis, better known as the greatest English mathematician before Newton. He was born on November 23, 1616, in Ashford, Kent, where his father was rector. He studied at Emanuel College, Cambridge, became a fellow of Queen’s College there, and was ordained a minister. He was known to divert himself with arithmetical problems, and one evening early in 1643, when he was serving as chaplain to the widowed Lady Vere, a gentleman brought him a letter that had been found after the capture of Chichester by a parliamentary army during the Puritan Revolution. Wallis told him that he could not tell whether he could solve it or not, “Adding withall, that if it were nothing but barely a new Alphabet, as at the first Sight it seemed to bee, I thought it might possibly bee done. The Gentleman,” Wallis wrote afterward, “who did not expect such an answer, told mee Hee would leave it with all his Heart, if I had any Thought of reading it: And accordingly did so. After Supper (for it was somewhat late in the Evening when 1 first saw it) having a while considered what Course to take, I set about it, and within a few Houres (before I slept) I had overcome the Difficulty, and transcribed the Letter in a legible Character. This good Successe upon an easy Cipher (for so it was) made me confident, that I might with the like ease read any other, which was no more intricate than that.” But the next one, a numerical, was so much more difficult than the first,”

—David Kahn, The Code-Breakers

John Wallace and Newton were contemporaries. Wallace was at Oxford, Newton at Cambridge. Wallace was a little older than Newton. Newton learnt a lot from Wallace. Without Wallace, Newton’s discovery of the Fluxional Calculus might not have been possible. They were both founding members of the Royal Society.

From this little incidence of how John Wallace was sucked into becoming a codebreaker in addition to being a mathematician, we can easily see that where breaking ciphers is concerned, we don’t need teachers. Anybody can break codes once they have set their mind on it. As I have mentioned over and over again, children often discover codebreaking as a game all on their own. Mathematicians have an advantage over most people in that they are used to dealing with marks on paper.