With clear mathematical, linguistic and technological demonstrations of many of the codes, as well as illustrations of some of the remarkable personalities behind them – many courageous, some villainous – The Code Book traces the fascinating development of codes and code-breaking from military espionage in Ancient Greece to modern computer ciphers, to reveal how the remarkable science of cryptography has often changed the course of history.Īmongst many extraordinary examples, Simon Singh relates in detail the story of Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code and put to death by Elizabeth I the strange history of the Beale Ciphers, describing the hidden location of a fortune in gold, buried somewhere in Virginia in the nineteenth century and still not found the monumental efforts in code-making and code-breaking that influenced the outcomes of the First and Second World Wars. This obsession with secrecy has had dramatic effects on the outcome of wars, monarchies and individual lives. The Secret History of Codes and Code BreakingĮver since humans began writing, they have been communicating in code.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |