Jews have been obsessed with numerology and cryptology for centuries. Heck, every letter in the Hebrew language is assigned a number. And when these numbers get added up, secret answers are found. Prophecies are revealed. Madonna becomes a Kabbalist scholar. Etc.

So it should come as no surprise that William Friedman, the man responsible for the US Army's cryptography division, was a Jew. Born Wolf Friedman in Bessarabia, he came to America as a young child, and became obsessed with cryptography at a young age. During World War I, he broke a code used by German-funded radicals. He then became the War Department's chief cryptanalyst, which, in 1930, led to the creation of the super-secret Signals Intelligence Service. Prior to the onset of World War II, the SIS broke Japan's supposedly unbreakable PURPLE cipher, uncovering their true intentions towards the US.

Friedman retired in 1956, returning to his first love... cryptology. He spent the latter years of his life discovering supposed secrets in the works of Francis Bacon and William Shakespeare.

So, William Friedman: American hero. A little nuts. Jew. And oh, by the way, if you read this profile backwards and circle every letter corresponding to a prime number, you just might decode a secret message.

Good luck with that.