I know that that was why the codebreakers could break Enigma, but why?
In: Mathematics
The enigma machine had a series of rotors that each connect a letter on one side to a letter on the other side. So if you put in ‘A’, the first rotor would transform ‘A’ to ‘B’, the second would transform ‘B’ to ‘C’, and so on. (not necessarily that pattern). After the letter was changed by a number of rotors, it was then fed into an electrical system where the letters were paired up and switched (so ‘A’ becomes ‘B’, ‘B’ becomes ‘A’, ‘C’ becomes ‘D’, ‘D’ becomes ‘C’, etc.). Finally, the letter was sent back through the rotors in reverse.
If the rotors turned ‘F’ into ‘Q’, then going in reverse would turn ‘Q’ into ‘F’, but because of the switching no letter could come out of the switchboard the same as it went in, so ultimately the output of the Enigma machine would not be the same as the input.
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