{"id":3093,"date":"2016-03-22T22:35:55","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T03:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/?p=3093"},"modified":"2016-03-23T11:30:32","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T16:30:32","slug":"the-enigma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/?p=3093","title":{"rendered":"The Enigma"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently had to go to the UK for a few days on business. \u00a0I always enjoy going to London ; a lovely city with much to see and do. \u00a0Of course, I don’t usually have much time for sightseeing.<\/p>\n

However, as regular readers of my blog will know,\u00a0I try to see some sights, even if on a restricted schedule.<\/p>\n

So last Saturday I did just that. \u00a0I went a bit off the beaten path to a place I have wanted to go for a few years now. \u00a0Its related to WWII and to Cryptography – and was incredibly interesting. \u00a0In fact, I had planned on a 2-3h visit and after over 5h I am sure did not see all there was to see.<\/p>\n

So, where did I go? \u00a0To Bletchley Park which is a 45 minute train ride north of London. \u00a0What’s that you ask! It’s where the British, in WWII, cracked the German Enigma machine codes. \u00a0If you saw the 2014 movie “The Imitation Game” or are a history buff you know all about this. \u00a0If you have not seen the movie, I highly recommend it.<\/p>\n

Here is “The Mansion” seen in many pictures of Bletchley Park and where some movie scenes were shot.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1271\"<\/p>\n

In the museum, they have quite a few Enigma machines. \u00a0If you thought your odd of winning the lottery are slim, consider this. \u00a0The possible combinations generated by this machine are of 158 Trillion – or 158 Million Millon! So defeating it was not a simple task, especially with 1940’s technology.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1312\"<\/p>\n

The man who was instrumental to this endeavor was Alan Turing, a mathematician. \u00a0Here is a statue of him made entirely of 500,000 small pieces of slate. \u00a0Amazing!<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1265\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_1263\"<\/p>\n

Turing’s genius was the design of the “Bombe”. \u00a0No, its not a “bomb”. The bombe was nickname\u00a0for the device seen below that was used to ultimately defeat and crack the German Enigma codes. \u00a0The machine works (i’m over simplifying this …) with a series of rotors which are able to “find” the Enigma settings (which was\u00a0the key to decrypting the German messages) much faster than any human can. The Bombe is recognized as being the first modern computer. \u00a0The Bombe seen below is a working recreation which took 13 years to make, since all of the ones built\u00a0during the war were destroyed by the Government at the conclusion of WWII.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1258\"<\/p>\n

In one of the “huts”, essentially very rudimentary office buildings, was Alan Turing’s office.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1304\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My friend David and I in Turing’s office. \u00a0David is a former work colleague in Cayman. I met up with him at the train station in London and spent a lovely day visiting the exhibits with him. \u00a0It was great to spend a bit of time in Turing’s office – rich in history. \u00a0It’s widely accepted by historians that Turing’s accomplishments (and others on his team) shortened the war by approximately 2-years and saved over 14M lives.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1302\"<\/p>\n

As a final picture. \u00a0If you have seen the movie, this is the bar which can be seen in a few scenes, notably in the “eureka” moment – the best part of the movie.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1289\"<\/p>\n

If you want to know more, below are some\u00a0some links for additional reading and a link to the museum should you wish to visit the next time you are in London. \u00a0I highly recommend visiting Bletchley Park – plan to spend the day; there is much to see and learn.<\/p>\n

Alan Turing<\/a><\/p>\n

The Bombe<\/a><\/p>\n

Bletchley Park Museum<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently had to go to the UK for a few days on business. \u00a0I always enjoy going to London ; a lovely city with much to see and do. \u00a0Of course, I don’t usually have much time for sightseeing. However, as regular readers of my blog will know,\u00a0I try to see some sights, even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-off-topic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3093"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3109,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3093\/revisions\/3109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}