You ask if we would mail you the answers to the Pi codes. Naturally, I reply, of course not! But I will give you some hints, and if you push, I will answer your question more completely if you ask me again. Fair enough? I hope so.
Here is Pi to eight digits: 3.1415927
Here are the five statements:
1. We won your fund drive sign.
2. Circles and diameters are equally important.
3. The easy vowels echo mathematical magnitude.
4. Bring in your initial six questions.
5. May I draw a round perimeter?
We originally put this poster up as part of our Pi day celebration, and it was a math puzzle. In our transition to Codes And Ciphers, we realized that it was still appropriate. I will approach it here as a problem for a cryptanalist
First, having the number itself to work with is very helpful. A codebreaker calls this a "crib." Code breaking is as much about figuring out the encipherment as it is about reading the message.
Second, a good code master will never send a message in more than one code without changing it in some other way, by altering words or word orders, or the very words themselves. In this case, Scott Kim, the author of these lines, has not obeyed this rule.
Where to start? You may have noticed that each sentence has six words. This might be useful. Coincidence? I think not!
Look at the second and fourth digits of the number Pi, our crib. You will notice they are the same. Look at each sentence. What do the second and fourth words have in common?
Some of the sentences, three and four, have a word hint to the solution, the others make more general remarks about circles.
Two of the sentences' solutions, one and four, do not rely on a numerical trick.
