Chapter 5

Mike: That one ruined (rune-ined?) my weekend. How's your geometry? You might want to ask Plato and Euler for some help.

The image consists of 15 lines each starting with a picture of geometric object followed by a letters and punctuation. The lines consist of
A tetrahedron followed by E : ULCABNWCLW,
An octahedron followed by E : IZOFQCBSVO,
An icosahedron followed by E : OPSEYAPDAN,
A tetrahedron followed by F : WEZQOKBWNE,
A dodecahedron followed by F : UVHQWFQIZO,
A dodecahedron followed by F : FQMZWBRSFW,
A hexahedron followed by F : ZNBYWIHYUH,
An octahedron followed by F : VLZWUQDAFV,
A dodecahedron followed by E : ANDWRAPDAO,
A dodecahedron followed by V : GSKBURASKC,
A tetrahedron followed by E : BUNCMNBYLU,
A dodecahedron followed by V : ZOUULZNKIU,
An icosahedron followed by F : TKYNKOMNZZ,
An octahedron followed by F : GLZSLGXLZW,
An octahedron followed by V : WSFCHXYL

The image above contains a hidden question. Please enter the answer to the question in the box below. If the answer is a number please enter it in numerals to two decimal places rather than words.

To deter guessing without thinking, we ask that you also solve the following simple arithmetic problem before checking your answer:

What is five multiplied by two, plus eight?

This problem was first solved on Mon 2nd March at 4:27:44pm

Alan Turing Cryptography Competition 2026 is organised by the The Department of Mathematics at The University of Manchester.
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