Typically, the letter ‘J’ is treatedĮach letter can now be replaced by its coordinates. (This square obviously contains the English alphabet of 26 letters, rather than the ancient Greek one. Polybius’ solution to this problem was to first write out the alphabet in a square: Smaller number of positions, and it was obviously easier to find distinctive positions of this smaller number which could still be observed from If the 24 letters could somehow be replaced with a much smaller number of symbols, then the torch would only need to be held at this Whilst the torch could be spotted a long way away, the subtle difference between one of the 24 possible positions could not be detected at suchĪ distance. It was difficult to find a system of holding a torch in 24 different ways to signify the 24 different letters of ancient Greek. Polybius was thinking about the problem of how to communicate messages over a long distance by usingīurning torches. A Polybius square was devised by the ancient Greek historian Polybius as a way of replacing the many letters in an alphabet
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