Solving the Olum 1 Cipher

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.