Today in Mathland, we learned how to do some basic cryptography with matrices and their inverses. Cryptography is basically the way of using a code to hide a message. This was done many times in history to bring certain messages securely to another individual without people knowing what was written. Cryptography can be extremely complex, but we will first try it with simple matrices. The way this was done is that the original matrix is the one that encrypts the numbers which corresponds to letters of the alphabet. For example, "A" would be 1, while "C" would be 3. This is done by grouping the numbers we would like to encrypt into a form that can multiply with the encryption matrix to create a code. This code then can be decrypted by multiplying it to the inverse of the original encryption matrix to once again obtain the numbers that correspond to letters. Below, there is the example of the cryptography we tried in class where we decrpyted a code and encrypted the message with a new code:
I have to agree with you at the beginning cryptography was complex but when you break it down it turns out to be simple. I was really confused at first but once i understood it i was able to figure everything out smoothly. This was how people sent other people with hidden messages but now a days we don't really use this anymore. I think it got too complicated for some people and it takes some time to figure out the message. This was a fun project but i think i rather stick with simpler codes.
ReplyDelete