[split] Diplomatic ciphers

[Mark Knowles]

JKP: It seems to me that there must be a greater number of blocks than there are characters.

i.e. two characters $ and &


four distinct two character long blocks

$&
&$
$$
&&

three characters -> 27 distinct three character long blocks

In other words when you start using blocks instead of individual characters the size of the equivalent character set possible mappings hugely increases.

So you may run of characters to represent the alphabet, but you don't run out of blocks to represent the alphabet, at all, in fact you have more than enough.