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The Imitation Game
Cracking It

Maths Week: Test yourself with this codebreaking puzzle

Can you figure this one out?

MATHS WEEK KICKED off yesterday, seven days of celebrations of all things numbers, angles and theorems.

For the 10th year in-a-row, students, teachers and adults up and down the country will participate in events to highlight the fun, magic and importance of maths.

For those who can’t make it to an event, activities will also be available on the website and on Twitter at @mathsweek.

Right, time for today’s puzzle. And it’s an interesting one.

Sunday’s codebreaker

There has been a lot of interest in the fascinating stories of codes and code breaking, particularly after the film The Imitation Game.

Everyone now knows the name Alan Turing but do you know about Ireland’s wartime codebreaker? Richard Hayes was described as “a colossus of a man”. Maybe this phrase is referring to the code crunching computer at Bletchley Park used by British Intelligence to crack Nazi codes. To the outside world, Hayes was director of the National Library of Ireland. Known to only a few he was Ireland’s wartime master codebreaker. His remarkable career in espionage began when Military Intelligence asked the librarian to examine an intercepted Nazi message. Hayes has a connection with codebreaking centre Bletchley Park in that his shared results were of great use to British codebreakers.

Can you follow Ireland’s master codebreaker Richard Hayes by cracking the following?

1,14 5,1,19,25 15,14,5 20,15 19,20,1,18,20

18,5 8,16 9,3,1 19,9,19,9 8,20

10,71,12,81,16

Click here for the answers to yesterday’s puzzle.

Check back tomorrow, same time of 11.15am, for the answers and for Sunday’s puzzle.

Try: Saturday’s Puzzle

More: These handy tips will help develop your child’s maths skills (without them knowing it)>

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