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The Code Book : The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh (1999, Hardcover)

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The Code Book : The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum....

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Codes have decided the fates of empires, countries, and monarchies throughout recorded history. Mary, Queen of Scots was put to death by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth, for the high crime of treason after spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham cracked the secret code she used to communicate with her conspirators. And thus the course of British history was altered by a few sheets of cryptic prose. This is just one link in humankind's evolutionary chain of secret communication, and just one of the fascinating incidents recounted inThe Code Book, written by bestselling author Simon Singh. Combining a superb storyteller's sense of drama and a scientist's appreciation for technical perfection, Singh traces the evolution of secret writing from ancient Greek military espionage to the frontiers of computer science. The result is an epic tale of human ingenuity, with examples that range from the poignant to the peculiar to the world-historical. There is the case of the Beale ciphers, which involves Wild West escapades, a cowboy who amassed a vast fortune, a buried treasure worth $20 million, and a mysterious set of encrypted papers describing its whereabouts--papers that have baffled generations of cryptanalysts and captivated hundreds of treasure hunters. A speedier end to a bloody war was the only reward that could be promised to the Allied code breakers of World Wars I and II, whose selfless contributions altered the course of history; but few of them lived to receive any credit for their top-secret accomplishments. Among the most moving of these stories is that of the World War II British code breaker Alan Turing, who gave up a brilliant career in mathematics to devote himself to the Allied cause, only to end his years punished by the state for his homosexuality, while his heroism was ignored. No less heroic were the Navajo code talkers, who volunteered without hesitation to risk their lives for the Allied forces in the Japanese theater, where they were routinely mistaken for the enemy. Interspersed with these gripping stories are clear mathematical, linguistic, and technological demonstrations of codes, as well as illustrations of the remarkable personalities--many courageous, some villainous, and all obsessive--who wrote and broke them. All roads lead to the present day, in which the possibility of a truly unbreakable code looms large. Singh explores this possibility, and the ramifications of our increasing need for privacy, even as it begins to chafe against the stated mission of the powerful and deeply secretive National Security Agency. Entertaining, compelling, and remarkably far-reaching, this is a book that will forever alter your view of history, what drives it, and how private that e-mail you just sent really is. Included in the book is a worldwide Cipher Challenge--a $15,000 award will be given by the author to the first reader who cracks the code successfully. Progress toward the solution will be tracked on The Code Book website.

Product Identifiers

Publisher
Doubleday Religious Publishing Group, T.H.E.
ISBN-10
0385495315
ISBN-13
9780385495318
eBay Product ID (ePID)
858666

Product Key Features

Book Title
Code Book : the Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography
Number of Pages
416 Pages
Language
English
Topic
Communication Studies, Security / Cryptography, Intelligence & Espionage, History
Publication Year
1999
Illustrator
Yes
Genre
Computers, Science, Language Arts & Disciplines, Political Science
Author
Simon Singh
Format
Hardcover

Dimensions

Item Height
1.2 in
Item Weight
25.4 Oz
Item Length
9.5 in
Item Width
6.4 in

Additional Product Features

Reviews
Praise forFermat's Enigmaby Simon Singh: "Vividly recounted...I strongly recommend this book to anyone wishing to catch a glimpse of what is one of the most important and ill-understood, but oldest, cultural activities of humanity...an excellent and very worthwhile account of one of the most dramatic and moving events of the century." --Roger Penrose,The New York Times Book Review "How great a riddle was Fermat's 'last theorem'? The exploration of space, the splitting of the atom, the discovery of DNA--unthinkable in Fermat's time--all were achieved while his Pythagorean proof still remained elusive...Though [Singh] may not ask us to bring too much algebra to the table, he does expect us to appreciate a good detective story." --The Boston Sunday Globe "It is hard to imagine a more informative or gripping account of...this centuries-long drama of ingenious failures, crushed hopes, fatal duels, and suicides." --The Wall Street Journal "[Singh] writes with graceful knowledgeability of the esoteric and esthetic appeal of mathematics through the ages, and especially of the mystifying behavior of numbers." --The New York Times "[Singh] has done an admirable job with an extremely difficult subject. He has also done mathematics a great service by conveying the passion and drama that have carried Fermat's Last Theorem aloft as the most celebrated mathematics problem of the last four centuries." --American Mathematical Society "The amazing achievement of Singh's book is that it actually makes the logic of the modern proof understandable to the nonspecialist...More important, Singh shows why it is significant that this problem should have been solved." --The Christian Science Monitor
Dewey Edition
21
Lccn
99-035261
Target Audience
Trade
Dewey Decimal
652/.8/09
Lc Classification Number
Z103.S56 1999
Copyright Date
1999

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Would recommend

Good value

Compelling content

Most relevant reviews

5 out of 5 stars
by h.d.b.Aug 25, 2020
Excellent primer on code and code use
This book ends with the best description of quantum computing I have read anywhere. That's the picture below, Google's quantum computer.
Product Reviews Images
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
5 out of 5 stars
by iangillan1987Aug 16, 2022
Interesting to Well-written
One of the most useful introductory and self-sufficient books for those interested in cryptology.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
5 out of 5 stars
by shempJan 08, 2015
I learned a lot
Very interesting and well written introduction to the evolution of cryptography and cryptanalysis. I was surprised how much I enjoyed reading it.

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The Code Book : The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh (1999, Hardcover)

About this product

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Product Key Features

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Ratings and Reviews

Most relevant reviews

Excellent primer on code and code use

Interesting to Well-written

I learned a lot

Best Selling in Books

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