Tuesday 6 February 2024

The Enigma Cipher of WW2 & the Turing Machine.

Polish and British mathematicians were among the best of people who cracked the Adolph Hitler's cipher named Enigma, it happened during the World War 2nd.

Enigma breaking was hard, and the mathematicians were hunted by Germany's spies.

Enigma evolved, so parts of the cipher were to be cracked again and again. It was not about making an automaton once, and letting it work for the rest of WW2 ... but statistically it worked so the effort was continued.

Doing maths when time flew and lives were at stake.... so stressful. The Germany's spies added to the dangers & to the stress too.

Polish mathematicians had one of few of first computers ... it was nicknamed: 'Bomb', for it was so big invention. It increased efficiency of the enigma cipher cracking.

And there was Alan Turing's effort of course. He was a British scientist who laid foundation-theory of computer's construction.

His thinking is still present in computer sciences of modern days.

(We were taught about Languages & Automatons in Warsaw University when i was studying computer sciences. Turing's Machine was a part of this lecture).

> [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine ].

The Turing Machine is programmed in a similar way to programming the Register Machine.

> [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_machine ].


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Sources:

1. 'Cubits & Shrodinger's Cat. From Turing Machine to Quantum Computers' by John Gribbin.
(Polish Edition).


2. The internet (wikipedia & the ważniak mostly) and my own thinking.

3. My (unfinished because of health problems) education at Warsaw's University (Mathematics, Informatics & Mechanics Faculty).