The Science of Secrecy: The Secret History of Codes and Code-breaking

Singh, Simon

ISBN 10: 1841154350 / ISBN 13: 9781841154350

Published by Fourth Estate Ltd, London, England, 2000

About this Item

Published by Fourth Estate of London in 2000. Hardcover. 1st edition, 1st impression. See inside number sequence "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2." Book condition: Near Fine. Black cloth boards with gilt titles to spine. Inside pages are in good order. Dust Jacket condition: Near Fine. Price unclipped. See photograph. Dims: 240mm x 190mm x 27mm. 240 pages.

Seller Inventory # 003281

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Science of Secrecy: The Secret History of Codes and Code-breaking
• Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd, London, England
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1841154350
• ISBN 13: 9781841154350
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

About this title

Synopsis

A TV tie-in edition of The Code Book filmed as a prime-time five-part Channel 4 series on the history of codes and code-breaking and presented by the author.

The Science of Secrecy, which accompanies the major Channel 4 series of the autumn, brings to life the hidden history of codes and code breaking. Since the birth of writing, there has also been the need for secrecy. The story of codes is the story of the brilliant men and women who used mathematics, linguistics, machines, computers, gut instinct, logic and detective work to encrypt and break these secrect messages and the effect their work has had on history.

Each episode of The Science of Secrecy Simon Singh tells us a fascinating story from the history of codes: how the course of Crimean War was changed by the cracking of ‘unbreakable ‘ Vigenere code; how the well-timed cracking of a single encoded telegram altered the course of World War One or how the mysteries of the Rosetta stone were revealed.

The Science of Secrecy also investigates present day concerns about privacy on the internet and public key cryptography and looks to the future and the possibilities that quantum computing will radically change the science of secrecy in the 21st century.

About the Author

Simon Singh is a science journalist and TV producer. Having completed his Ph.D. at Cambridge he worked from 1991 to 1997 at the BBC producing Tomorrow’s World and co-directing the BAFTA award-winning documentary Fermat’s Last Theorem for the Horizon series. In 1997, he published Fermat’s Last Theorem, which was a no 1 best-seller in Britain and translated into 22 languages. In 1999, he published The Code Book.