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Simon Singh
The Code Book
includes a cypher challenge - first prize £10,000. It was solved in
October 2000. Read an account at
CypherChallenge.
Visit the author's own site at
SimonSingh
Visit this java implimentation of the Enigma machine.
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 Fermat's Last Theorem
Fourth Estate. When
Cambridge mathematician Andrew Wiles announced a solution for Fermat's last
theorem in 1993, it electrified the world of mathematics. After a flaw was
discovered in the proof, Wiles had to work for another year--he had already
laboured in solitude for seven years--to establish that he had solved the
350-year-old problem. Simon Singh's book is a lively, comprehensible
explanation of Wiles's work and of the colourful history that has build up
around Fermat's last theorem over the years. The book contains some problems
that offer a taste for the maths, but it also includes limericks to give a
feeling for the quirkier side of mathematicians.
Buy at
 The Code
Book
Simon Singh offers in this book a sweeping view of
the subject of encryption as well as its more dramatic effects on the outcome
of wars, monarchies, and individual lives. The history of the Beale Cipher,
which was created in the early 19th-century to help hide treasure, is included.
Buy at
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