Abstract

During the second World War, American mathematician Paul Olum created two ciphers, labeled “Olum 1” and “Olum 2”, as challenges for the renowned atomic physicist Richard Feynman. These ciphers eluded solution by Feynman and remained unsolved for over 75 years. This manuscript presents the first successful decoding of the Olum 1 cipher. It describes the methods used to solve Olum 1 as well as the historical context of the once-classified information it contains. It concludes with observations about the possible authorship of additional ciphers given to Richard Feynman and examines the possibility that they, too, were created by Paul Olum.

摘要

在第二次世界大战期间，美国数学家保罗·奥卢姆创造了两个密码，分别标记为“Olum 1”和“Olum 2”，作为对著名原子物理学家 Richard Feynman 的挑战。这些密码没有被费曼解决，并且在超过 75 年的时间里仍未解决。这份手稿首次成功解码了 Olum 1 密码。它描述了用于解决 Olum 1 的方法以及它包含的曾经分类信息的历史背景。它以对理查德·费曼 (Richard Feynman) 的其他密码的可能作者身份的观察结束，并检查了它们也由保罗·奥卢姆创造的可能性。