Recently Marvel Comics asked a comic book fandom to help decipher some hidden codes at Collin Kelly and Carmen Carnero Captain America: Sentinel of freedom series. Something like this is a fun way to get readers and fans to pay more attention to their material, and it got me researching and learning more about breaking code. Code-breaking appears in other areas of pop culture, with fantasy movies like national treasure and The “Da Vinci Code”or movies based on real people like Alan Turing in The imitation game. So where did this research on decoding lead me?
I first started with the cover of Captain America: Sentinel of Freedom #4 and had to figure out what was a code and what was a hint. When you inspect the cover, you will notice a list of correctly decrypted binary codes on the left side. This excellent article, “Write Your Name in Binary Code” by Ariel Zych, helped me quickly understand how the system works with a great conversion sheet.
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Unfortunately, the binary code was not the cipher I needed. As I continued my search for information, I started reading Captain America: Sentinel of Freedom #1 and noticed that Steve Rogers had heard coded messages. With that, he called on his friends, the Radio Company, to help him. I searched for “Radio Company”, which led me to AVA Radio Company and Marian Rejewski. I thought I was going to hit the ground running as these were big players in code cracking.
The AVA Radio company designed and built many cipher machines that the Polish Cipher Bureau used during World War II. The company was highly regarded and eventually received other clients, including Jean Lugeon of the Warsaw Meteorological Institute, who made some of the earliest modern forays into radio astronomy.
Rejewski was a real-life hero who helped defeat Germany, a gifted Polish mathematician who could meet the additional unique requirements of the Polish Cipher Bureau. and his college studies. After earning a master’s degree in philosophy in mathematics, he was still working with the Cipher Bureau on decoding intercepted German radio messages.
A pivotal moment in the war came when Rejewski and a group of cryptologists cracked a German Navy code that was an exchange with a six-word question followed by a four-character answer. Their discovery was the question, “When was Frederick the Great born?» and the answer «1712.” I imagine there was a lot of frustration throughout this process, as the exchange had no guarantees of format or topic.
This is probably where Rejewski’s background in math and philosophy helped him continue to crack the codes. There should be a love of challenge and a determination that would attract the attention of his superiors, leading to his work on the infamous Enigma Cipher Machine. It was an effective tool in the German Armed Forces that could decode a wide range of combinations. And the code changed every day!
Rejewski used symmetry and congruence to help him understand codes and potential arrangements. The theorem was, “two permutations are conjugate if and only if they have the same ring structurewhich would be dubbed “the theorem that won World War II”. Rejewski’s use of theorem and his examples of using patterns inspired me to start looking more at style in comic book code.
As a math teacher, I always encourage people to develop their problem-solving skills. Captain America: Sentinel of FreedomThe challenge led to a fun mystery, pushing me to learn more about the decryption and its place in history. Coding is a great way to get your message across while keeping it secret, and it’s exciting to see if you can intercept and decipher other people’s messages. Here is my cipher and the codes for some of the comics. Enjoy!
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