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

[Robert Burrell Donkin]

On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 10:46 AM, Andrew Back <andrew at carrierdetect.com> wrote:
> 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.

Do people need to register or anything...?

Robert

> 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
>
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