Codebreakers and Groundbreakers
Edited by Yannis Galanakis, Anastasia Christophilopoulou & James Grime

City: Cambridge
Year: 2017
Publisher: The Fitzwilliam Museum
Description: Paperback, 138 p., numerous b/w tables, numerous b/w and colour figures, 19 x 24.6 cm
Abstract
Secret texts and secret writing have an age-old fascination. In this hook two stories are told: of the people who worked on breaking vital codes in the Second World War and those who deciphered the Linear B script – Europe’s earliest comprehensible writing system. Here experts in the fields of Mycenaean epigraphy and the study of the Aegean Bronze Age join with fellow specialists in mathematics, cryptography and the history of computer. They show how collaboration between people with a wide range of expertise in disparate fields can result in great discoveries, whether they are mathematicians or linguists, or just good at puzzles. Both groups of pioneer codebreakers needed original thinkers and the stories of those involved, especially Alan Turing and Dillwyn Knox at Bletchley Park and Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in Cambridge, are told here.
Contents
Foreword [vii-viii]
Tim Knox
Preface [ix-x]
Anastasia Christophilopoulou
Acknowledgements [xi-xii]
Part 1. The Decipherment of Linear B
1. Discovering Writing in Bronze Age Greece [1-14]
Yannis Galanakis
2. The Decipherment: People, Process, Challenges [15-29]
Anna P. Judson
READ THE ARTICLE
3. Reading between the Lines: The Worlds of Linear B [30-44]
John Bennet
READ THE ARTICLE
4. The Other Pre-alphabetic Scripts of Crete and Cyprus [45-53]
Philippa M. Steele
READ THE ARTICLE
5. Aegean Scripts in a Digital Era [54-59]
Federico Aurora
6. Classics at Bletchley [60-66]
Annie Burman
PART 2. THE SECOND WORLD WAR: COMPUTERS AND THE FUTURE
7. The Joy of Breaking Codes [69-72]
Christos Gkantsidis
8. Alan Turing and the Enigma Machine [73-82]
James Grime
9. Breaking the Lorenz Cipher Machine: The Other German Code Machine [83-92]
James Grime
10. Codebreaking after the Second World War [93-108]
Markulf Kohlweiss, Nik Sultana & Sir Tony Hoare
Epilogue [109-112]
James Clackson
Appendix: List of Objects [113-129]
Α. Christophilopoulou, Y. Galanakis & James Grime
Notes [131-134]
References and Further Reading [135-138]
Index [139-144]
Comments
Παρακαλούμε τα σχόλιά σας να είναι στα Ελληνικά (πάντα με ελληνικούς χαρακτήρες) ή στα Αγγλικά. Αποφύγετε τα κεφαλαία γράμματα. Ο Αιγεύς διατηρεί το δικαίωμα να διαγράφει εκτός θέματος, προσβλητικά, ανώνυμα σχόλια ή κείμενα σε greeklish.