How the Most Important Code of WWII Was Cracked

The break of the Enigma Code is one of the most interesting stories in the history of calculation — but it ’s not necessarily easy to get your point around . Fortunately , this television offer an amazingly straightforward explanation of how the code was crack .

James Grime , a mathematician from Cambridge University , explains how Turing and his coworkers managed to shoot down the German encoding . It all stem from the fact that the code contained a insidious flaw : a varsity letter was never encipher in such a way that it was represented by itself once coded . From there , Turing was able to work out a solution .

Of course , the problem was that the code change every night . So Turingbuilt the Bombe : a machine that could break the computer code , every good morning , in just 20 minutes . At this point in time , though , I ’ll hand over to James — who can distinguish the whole appendage far more elegantly than I could ever hope to . [ YouTube ]