Re: New books on Colossus
Ronald Wyllys <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.science.cryptography.bletchley-park |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Re Matt's comment, "Cue some suitable adage about buses coming in threes": I suggest reading the title chapter in the delightful book, "Why Do Buses Come in Threes?", by R. Eastaway and J. Wyndham. This chapter begins: "Everybody knows that if you want to catch a bus, you spend ages waiting and then three will come at once. That at least is the urban myth . . . . According to mathematicians, however, it really is a myth. Buses don't usually come in threes, they come in twos. . . ." The authors explain the latter phenomenon in three pithy and clear paragraphs. The book offers similarly brief and understandable explanations of 18 other probabilistic phenomena, one of the chapters being entitled, "How do you keep a secret?: Code-making and breaking isn't just for spies". I highly recommend the book. As to why two books on Colossus should appear within two months of each other, the explanation probably lies in the releases during recent years of a good deal of previously classified information about Colossus and about the extraordinary work during WWII by the agencies now known as GCHQ and NSA, combined with Tony Sales's masterful reconstruction of Colossus and his admirable, public battles to try to point out how the Bletchley Park site should be developed. All these factors have brought much recent public attention to these aspects of WWII, creating a potential market for books like those that engendered this thread. Ronald Wyllys (a 1950s NSAer) Matt R wrote: > --- Martin Postranecky <mp-/[email protected]> wrote: > > >>In today's ( Saturday 04 March 2006 ) THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, in the >>Arts & Books Section, there are extensive reviews of two new books >>on Colossus. Reviews not yet available on the web - but you may be >>interested in the books... ( try eg. Amazon.co.uk if you cannot get >>the paper ) >> >>I haven't read either of these books yet, so no view. >> >> > >I got both for my birthday yesterday; there's some 850 pages of main text >between them. It's interesting that we get not one, but two substantial >treatments of Colossus coming out within a couple of months of each other. Cue >some suitable adage about buses coming in threes ;-) > >-- Matt > > >Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto >Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com > > > >___________________________________________________________ >To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com > > >