Exercise 1: Tracing a Single Keypress Through Enigma — Possible Solution ==================================================================== The full path, in order: 1. A key is pressed, starting an electrical signal. 2. The signal enters the PLUGBOARD. If that letter is one of the ~10 cabled pairs, it is swapped for its partner letter; otherwise it passes through unchanged. 3. The signal enters the RIGHTMOST rotor and is substituted according to that rotor's internal wiring. 4. The signal enters the MIDDLE rotor and is substituted again. 5. The signal enters the LEFTMOST rotor and is substituted a third time. 6. The signal reaches the REFLECTOR, which sends it back the OTHER way through a fixed set of 13 letter pairs (never back to the same letter it entered on). 7. The signal re-enters the LEFTMOST rotor, this time travelling in reverse, and is substituted again (using the same wiring, but in the opposite direction). 8. The signal passes back through the MIDDLE rotor, again in reverse. 9. The signal passes back through the RIGHTMOST rotor, again in reverse. 10. The signal re-enters the PLUGBOARD, swapped again if applicable. 11. The signal reaches the LAMPBOARD and lights exactly one lamp — the ciphertext letter. The signal passes through the rotor stack TWICE total: once travelling outward (rightmost -> middle -> leftmost) on its way to the reflector, and once travelling in the opposite direction (leftmost -> middle -> rightmost) on its way back from the reflector. WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER ------------------------------ This reuses the chapter's own 11-step pathway diagram directly. The "passes through the rotors twice, in opposite directions" detail is the specific point the chapter calls out as making Enigma reciprocal (the same settings both encrypt and decrypt) — and it's also exactly the structural detail Exercise 2 and Chapter 4 build on to explain the reflector's exploitable weakness.