The Enigma Key

The Problem

Cryptography is the study of codes, the majority of which involve a great deal of mathematics, both simple and complex. Some of its major applications are protection of credit card numbers to prevent people from purchasing merchandise with random sixteen digit numbers, website based applications that gather information for orders, purchasing, and reservations, and military and national security matters. The objective of any good cryptography is to make it impossible, or at any rate extremely difficult and time-consuming, for anyone who intercepts the information to decipher it. The objective here is to detail the basics of cryptography and how to use matrices to encrypt and decrypt messages.

Areas of Application

Matrix algebra
Matrix inverses and determinants

Explanation of Alignment with Standards

Background Information

Historical information on the basics of cryptography and the Enigma Machine used by the Germans during World War II are included in the project.

Materials Included

Activites and full explanations for:

Matrix multiplication
Determinants and inverses of 2x2 and 3x3 matrices
Cryptography using 2x2 and 3x3 matrices

Download

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Compressed Zip File	The Enigma Key.zip	501k

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Last modified: Jun 25, 2010, 14:52 UTC