Smuggling yourself aboard the rogue submarine was the easy part. Hacking into the nuclear missile launch override — a little harder. And you’ve got a problem: you don’t have the override code. You know you need the same numbers that were used to authorize the launch, but one wrong answer will lock you out. Can you figure out what numbers to enter to stop nuclear war?

A very special thank you to Jon Schneider and Brian Chen, who wrote the original version of this puzzle for the 2021 MIT Mystery Hunt and were inestimably helpful in adapting it to this format.

[TED Ed]