To celebrate the IMA’s 60th anniversary in 2024, a number of articles have been chosen by IMA members and MT readers, who introduce their favourite MT articles and explain why they are important to them. Here Peter Rowlett CMath FIMA, Sheffield Hallam University, introduces …
A Classical Cipher Machine: The ENIGMA – Some Aspects of its History and Solution by Robert (Bob) Churchhouse CBE FIMA (IMA President 1986–1987)
Robert Churchhouse gives an account of the history and design of the Enigma enciphering machine and details the mathematical analysis that led to the decryption of its messages at Bletchley Park during World War II. This includes that the machine was developed for commercial use before the war and the early work of the Poles in its breaking, elements that are sometimes missed in more recent accounts. Remarking on the depth of mathematical analysis in both the design of the machine and the cracking of messages, he concludes ‘There have been people, including mathematicians who thought that pure mathematics had no practical applications. How wrong they were!’
Download the article, A Classical Cipher Machine: The ENIGMA (pdf) scanned from the 1991 IMA Bulletin, vol. 27, no. 7, pp. 129–137.
