GMC2 Solution

Congratulations again to Nic Mortimer, who wins the prize for the first corrrect solution to the second Greenwihc Maths Challenge. He deciphered the encrypted passage from G.H. Hardy's A Mathematician's Apology (which is given below). The substitution cipher was based on the word CHRISTMAS with A mapping to C, B to H, C to R and so on. But to make it harder, half the Es in the plaintext were treated as Ys, so the mapping was not one-to-one.

The next Greenwich Maths Challenge will be launched on or after Monday 11 January.

Meanwhile, you can do the Christmas Quiz, which will be posted here shortly!

Here is the passage from Hardy:

Greek mathematics is ‘permanent’, more permanent even than Greek literature. Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not. “Immortality” may be a silly word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may mean... Nor need he fear very seriously that the future will be unjust to him.
No other subject has such clear-cut or unanimously accepted standards, and the men who are remembered are almost always the men who merit it. Mathematical fame, if you have the cash to pay for it, is one of the soundest and steadiest of investments.