Triviality V: Gematria

Short Triviality today, but I figured I may as well make a post on it.

I love codes and cyphers, as most of you reading this know already. If you don't, suffice it to say that over the past 4 years my fascination with them has been extensive, to say the least. I can tell the difference between Baconian Biliteral and Ogham. I can spot one-time-pad keys against Vigenere repeatings, and much else.

So today I'd like to take the Tuesday to (see what I did there?) explain a rather basic-sounding but interesting idea that originates in Ancient Hebrew and Greek writings. Gematria.

Gematria is the name of the number system that the Hebrews used, or rather, lack of. You see, the Hebrews didn't use numbers. They didn't have them. They used letters.

Schoolkids use this principle with alphanumeric ciphers, such as A=1, B=2, C=3, D=4, E=5 and so on. So:

Robert Miranda = 18-15-2-5-18-20  13-9-18-1-14-4-1.

Just an example. But that's pretty much all gematria is. (Note: gematria is the Greek term for this method. It's where we get the word geometry.)

There's some tables onnline, if you want to try it yourself, I can't make one or post one without copyright permission.

A short note: that all-too-shocking 666, the number of the Beast, spells out Neron Caesar. 616, which is actually the accurate version of 666, spells out Nero Caesar. Both Neron and Nero are accepted spellings, kind of like Robert and Roberto work for the same name. Make of that what you will.


To the next!
-Rob