Puzzle 12 – Enigma
These technical drawings are for the British Bombe, the machine specified by Turing and one of the primary tools used to break Enigma-enciphered messages during WWII.
This is a meta puzzle.
Cash in your answers in increasing order and take careful note of your change because they form an enciphered message.
We have already set up the Enigma machine for you; so after solving the previous puzzles you can type in your message to find out what you’ve done!
Solution
So far we have got the following eleven clues:
1. EUGENIA
2. FATHERING
3. LANTERN
4. CORWEN
5. BLOB
6. MARGOT
7. OVERSEEING
8. MINUTE
9. BOLEYN
10. FJOLNIR
11. CRUELLA
There are a lot of hints in the text of the question and it also describes it as a meta puzzle.
The hints “count your change”, “cash in”, “change” make it clear there is a monetary aspect to this puzzle. Next you probably will have noticed something about the words.
Many are remarkable close to names of British pre-decimal coins. Perhaps the easiest to spot first is FATHERING being very close to FARTHING. The only difference being a E – your “change”!
Then you just need to go through each word looking for an anagram for a pre-decimal coin and a letter left over as “change”.
Then, as the question asks, you need to “cash in your answers in increasing order” so work out the value of each answer and sort them in ascending order to get the following:
FARTHING ¼d (FATHERING) – change = E
GROAT 4d (MARGOT) – change = M
TANNER 6d (LANTERN) – change = L
BOB 1/- (BLOB) – change = L
FLORIN 2/- (FJOLNIR) – change = J
CROWN 5/- (CORWEN) – change = E
NOBLE 6/8 (BOLEYN) change = Y
LAUREL 20/- (CRUELLA) – change = C
SOVEREIGN 20/- (OVERSEEING) change = E
UNITE 20/- (MINUTE) change = M
GUINEA 21/- (EUGENIA) change = E
You then just need to put these letters into the ENIGMA machine in this order. You’ll notice three coin have the same value (£1 or 20/-) so just work through the permutations until you get a sensible answer:
The answer is STERL INGJO B or STERLING JOB.
Well done! You’ve completed the #TuringChallenge 🙂