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His cryptographic achievements during WW2 were also vastly oversold. Most of the theoretical breakthroughs needed to crack Enigma were made by Polish mathematic
by fmajid 5y ago
His cryptographic achievements during WW2 were also vastly oversold. Most of the theoretical breakthroughs needed to crack Enigma were made by Polish mathematicians, but it was more palatable for the British government to put a Brit forward, just as they did for penicillin.
- r_c_a_d 5y agoThe brits didn't put anyone forward at all, they kept it secret for as long as they could and long after Turing's death. There is now a memorial at Bletchley Park to the Polish mathematicians who worked on Enigma.
- mhh__ 5y agoIndeed, we basically shoved Colossus in a warehouse (scientifically at least - I assume they were used for more cold war stuff)
- rich_sasha 5y agoI think this is true of Enigma as of start of WWII. But Enigma was modified many times over the duration of the war, needing not just "number crunching" but genuinely new methods. So Enigma was genuinely re-broken, a few times, at Bletchley Park, indeed by an all-British team, but yes, easy to forget the little people who did all the initial work.
- bobthechef 5y ago“Little people” seems like a strange choice of words. In this case, these were foundational contributions.
- ellimilial 5y agoThe team being 'all-British' for obvious security reasons. Which I imagine might have felt like and insult to an injury to the 'little people', who, despite cracking the code, were not permitted to continue working on it. Making them, you know, 'little people'.
- billyruffian 5y agoThe work at Bletchly wasn't declassified until the 70s. The house and the site was a near ruin when I visited in the 90s. Hardly a government promoting anyone or anything. There is some, quite rightly, national disgust at the way Turing was treated which probably plays into his myth.