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]