[Bradford] Crypto/codebreaking, Alan Turing and Colossus talks, Haworth, Sunday 18th May.

[Andrew Back]

Hello,

Just wanted to let folks know about a series of talks which may be of
interest and that will be hosted at the 1940s festival in Haworth in
just over a week from now.

These are free to attend and should be suitable for all.

Cheers,

Andrew

//
                         The Station X Talks

Codebreaking, Alan Turing and an Electronic Computer

Sunday 18th May, West Lane Methodist Church, Haworth.

Join us for an afternoon of talks from world-renowned experts on the
history of cryptography and cracking codes, Alan Turing and his
contribution to the war effort and computing as we know it, and the
vital work of two of Bletchley Park's unsung heroes.

Please note that the talks are suitable for all and not just those who
are technically minded.

* 01:00 PM — Cracking the Cipher Challenge, Simon Singh

In "The Code Book", a history of cryptography, the author Simon Singh
included ten encrypted messages with a prize of £10,000 for the first
person or team to decipher all of them. He will be talking about how
he constructed the Cipher Challenge and how the winners eventually
cracked it. He will also be using the Cipher Challenge to give an
introduction to the history of cryptography and to demonstrate why
encryption is more important today than ever before.

Since completing a PhD in particle physics at Cambridge, Simon Singh
has been a TV director, author and broadcaster. He directed on both
Tomorrow's World and Horizon, and his books include 'Fermat's Last
Theorem', 'The Code Book' and 'Big Bang'. He successfully defended a
libel action brought by the British Chiropractic Association after
publishing 'Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial'. His
latest book is 'The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets'.

* 02:30 PM — Alan Turing: From Battle of the Atlantic to the Computer
Age, Professor Barry Cooper

The 1940s saw some of the most dramatic developments of the modern
era, much of them hidden away from general knowledge for decades. At
the heart of these events was the brilliant mathematician Alan Turing,
whose decoding work was key to Bletchley Park's shortening of World
War II by an estimated 2 years. "The geese that laid the golden eggs
and never cackled" was how Winston Churchill described the Bletchley
Decoders.

The second half of the 1940s saw the development of the first general
purpose computing machines, real embodiments of Turing's 1936
theoretical 'universal machine'. Turing himself was closely involved
in the designing, building and programming of these early 'stored
program' computers, which have so revolutionised every aspect of our
lives. He even made the first steps towards 'artificial intelligence',
with seminal work on neural nets - and his invention of the 'Turing
Test' for deciding if a thinking machine was indeed intelligent.

In this talk we will try and capture some of the excitement of this
amazing decade of discovery, and shine a light on some of the
remarkable people who played their part.

Barry Cooper is Professor of Mathematical Logic at the University of
Leeds. A graduate of the University of Oxford, his research follows
that of Alan Turing in its focus on the nature of mental and physical
computation. He is author and editor of numerous books, and Chair of
the Turing Centenary Committee, which coordinated the international
Turing Centenary celebrations.

* 04:00 PM — On the QT: The Man from the Ministry explains the work of
the Boffins at Bletchley Park, Kevin Murrell

Our chaps down at Bletchley Park have been going crossword crazy
decrypting messages from the Jerrys. But just when things seemed to be
going swimmingly and we were cracking codes left, right and centre, we
have picked up some fishy new signals that are keeping Hitler's own
messages secret squirrel or, Geheimnis Eichhörnchen, as they might
say!

Brigadier Tiltman and Mr Tutte — darn clever blighters the pair — have
worked out what must be going on, but we are relying on a plucky chap
from the Post Office, called Flowers, to build us a contraption to
sort it out once and for all.

This top-secret briefing, very much on the need-to-know-basis from a
Ministry official, will explain to a very select group the plans the
British have in the final push, and how a Heath Robinson contraption
has been replaced by some newfangled thing they are calling an
electronic computer to help crack the codes.

Our Expert from the Ministry is being assisted today by Kevin Murrell,
who will become, many years ahead, one of the founders of The National
Museum of Computing and one of its trustees. Kevin is also due to
become the secretary of the Computer Conservation Society some 60
years hence!

-- 
Andrew Back
http://carrierdetect.com