Please note: Top Secret: From ciphers to cyber security ended on 31 August 2021. To find out what exhibitions and activities are open today, visit our What’s On section.
On Wednesday 19 May, the Science and Industry Museum opened the first exhibition in its new Special Exhibitions Gallery, Top Secret. From Alan Turing and Bletchley Park, to Soviet spy rings and today’s cyber security, it reveals 100 years of codebreaking and secret communications, curated with expert insight from GCHQ. There’s also the Puzzle Zone where families can decipher fiendish codes and test their investigative abilities.
To get you started thinking like a codebreaker, we’ve put together these five puzzles for you to try and solve. The answers are at the bottom of the article so no cheating. Get the magnifying glasses out and see if you could be the next 007…
1. Spot the difference: Enigma
Alan Turing and the team at Bletchley Park may have broken this German coding machine but can you spot the five differences between these two Enigma machines?
2. Emoji code
Will you be shaken not stirred by this puzzle? What 10 films are these emojis spelling out?
3. Morse code
Use Samuel Morse’s famous dots and dashes to see what you should do after you receive this message…
4. Spot the difference: Pickwick Phone
This phone was the hotline developed to keep transatlantic communication secure between John F Kennedy and Harold Macmillan during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, but are you hot enough to find the six differences between these two photos?
5. Mobile phone code
Remember when texts took forever to type out? Step back in time to see if you can crack this last code by tapping out the letters like it’s 2002…
Answers:
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