Singh, Simon - The Code Book

[oyceter]

(subtitle: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography)

Er, this book is precisely on what the subtitle says. Singh basically takes the reader through the development of codes and ciphers throughout history, stopping to observe particularly historic moments for cryptography, along with going behind the people who made the major breakthroughs.

(An as-you-know-Bob: Codes encrypt by replacing entire words or phrases by other words or phrases while ciphers encrypt via letter substitution.)

I usually read non-fiction very, very slowly (think months), but I went through this book very quickly. Singh's prose isn't remarkable, but it is extremely clear without being dull, and he has a real gift for explaining things not only so I understand them, but so that I also get why the ideas or breakthroughs were really cool and exciting. While this may sound like damning with faint praise, I think it really is a very difficult thing to do, to write in prose so clear that the reader doesn't notice it and still manage to convey both ideas and emotion. I only wish more non-fiction writers could do this (Feynman was also really, really good at this. Plus, Feynman was funny). Singh also manages to relate the history of cryptography so that it feels like a story; there's dramatic tension and everything, which made the book not-so-ideal before-bed reading (I kept doing the "Just one more chapter.... just one more..." thing).

I'm not sure what my favorite parts were, because they were all pretty fascinating. Some highlights were the discussion of the importance of cryptography and cryptanalysts during World War II, and of course, the famous breaking of the Enigma cypher, which made me very geekily happy. Singh goes into how the Enigma machine worked and the various strategies different people used to try and crack it, and well, it was riveting! I swear, it was. The other part that made me very, very geekily happy was the decipherment of Linear B, an ancient language found on Crete, and when I was reading it, I just wanted to squee and wave my hands and yelp "Wow, that's SO COOL!" But then, I very much like puzzles and crosswords and the processes of figuring things out.

And Singh even manages to explain quantum cryptography (really odd stuff) in a way that I can sort of grasp -- I figure he is simplifying a great deal, so very mathy people (i.e. yhlee and fannishly) may be sort of annoyed by how he glosses over things, but it was quite illuminating for a layperson.

Anyhow, this was a really fun read, and now I want to pick up Singh's Fermat's Enigma. I like these mathy sciencey things, but usually the authors lose me because I have basically zero background, so it was nice to find something that I could sort of get and get excited about as well!

Links:
- furyofvissarion's review

Comments

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed the bit on Linear B too, and found Singh's really accessible despite the sometimes mathy subject matter.

[oyceter]

It's just... discovering ancient languages! So cool.

[kchew.livejournal.com]

I love science books for the non-science geek (being one): E=MC2 by David Bodanis was really good, as was Issac's Storm (on the big Galveston hurricane of early last century). The Feynman bio (big red one, not the one by Gribbin) was hard slogging (for me) through the math and physics, but really worth the effort.

My math-geek husband has a t-shirt with the proof for Fermat's Last Theorem on it. The theorem is on the front, and the bibliographical references are on the back. Very cool.

[oyceter]

Oh thanks for the recs! Hrm, I've never read through the actual Feynman lectures (are those the big red ones you're talking about?), but I've read his autobiographies written with Ralph Leighton (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman and What Do You Care What Other People Think?), both of which I adore. Some of the chapters have more science-y things than others, but I just love watching his brain work -- even if he's not decoding scientific principles, it still feels like science because I think he just thinks in the scientific method, if that makes sense.

Er, ahem. Ever since reading the books two years ago, I am very much a Feynman fan.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

I have copies on the Feynman Caltech physics lectures (except vol. 3--of that particular printing, anyway, on QM) and the first one broke my brain in wonderful ways. Alas, the things are in storage.

[oyceter]

Alas! I really need to read those sometime, although I suspect they would be very slow going just because I'm so unused to learning about physics and doing math now.

[kchew.livejournal.com]

The Feynman bio is by James Gleick, and is called Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, who I have also adored since I read Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman. I've told the story of how he learned to pick locks at Los Alamos many many times, most recently to John's godson, whose jaw hit the table in disbelief.

To up my beloved spouse's already high cool geek factor, he actually saw Feynman lecture many years ago. He says it was as good as it sounds.

[oyceter]

Oh very cool! I love the lock-picking story!

Btw, have you read Elizabeth Bear's Hammered?

And I am very, very jealous of your spouse.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Actually, I only got halfway through because I was borrowing it from yuneicorn during grad school and other things took priority, but that first half was clearly written and engaging, and I liked it quite a lot. I am not, for example, deeply versed in the ways of Enigma, but the other parts had enough of the math parts in that I could identify what was going on. (Incidentally, my last quarter at Stanford I did take an applied algebra cryptography course.) I'd like to finish it; I dropped the quantum cryptography seminar senior year at college because I was already overloaded on classes, and I never went back to the topic, although I have some general idea of some concepts. (My lack of QM background would hamper me for deeper math. Even though I like to snicker at Dirac's "bra" and "ket" notation.)

[oyceter]

The rest is quite cool too! I really want to play around with an Enigma replica or something.

And wow... quantum cryptography seminar. That just sounds so very, very neat.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

It was a great seminar; Prof. N. David Mermin taught it, and he is wonderful. I regret that my workload didn't accommodate the work it would have taken on top of everything else.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I need to read this for novel research. I suspect I'm using the wrong words for the puzzle my heroes are trying to unravel in some places.

Gina

[oyceter]

Oh cool! Also, it's a really fun read, so not painful research, hopefully.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

What kind of puzzles?

I'm not an expert, but I have a decent knowledge of the field math-wise. (If you want someone to hash out how Vigenère ciphers, for instance. It took me the longest time to figure them out.) I'd be glad to take questions.

My sister would also recommend The Codebreakers for a historical overview, but it's quite long, and I think even the revised edition is somewhat dated for modern cryptography.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the offer.

My big problem is knowing what to call the thing (my characters are all academics, so they're very precise about terminology).

The artefact they're studying is a three sided mirror (although they later learn that examples with four, five, six, etc sides also exist). Along each edge of the mirror's frame is a series of letters. Depending on which corner the reader starts from, and how many sides they follow the series along, the letters comprise the first letter of each word in a particular ritual. So a three-sided mirror can theoretically give the wording of nine different rituals.

I started off referring to the puzzle as an acronym, but I'm not sure that's right, and it's definitely not a cipher, given the definition above, so what is it?

Gina