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The four rotor enigma change the Germany Navy adopted though was a significant change - and the decryption of that was something Turing was heavily involved in.
by cmdkeen 12y ago
The four rotor enigma change the Germany Navy adopted though was a significant change - and the decryption of that was something Turing was heavily involved in.
In 1942 the Battle of the Atlantic was far from undecided and without cracking the naval Enigma it is entirely possible that Britain would not have been able to effectively stay in the war, or send convoys to Russia.
- dspillett 12y ago> was a significant change - and the decryption of that was something Turing was heavily involved in. It was still much more of a team effort than usually presented though. It does irritate slightly the way that people concentrate on the code cracking and Turing as it seems unfair in to directions: it forgets the other people who also contributed significantly, and pretty much ignores the significant work that Turning did do largely solo.
- Florin_Andrei 12y agoIt might be because Turing's groundbreaking theoretical work is beyond the realm of comprehension for the vast majority of people. There's only one person who became famous on the grounds that he's so great, almost nobody even understands what he's done - and that's Einstein.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoHe did a lot. Everybody understands the simple stuff - matter and energy are the same thing - e=mc2
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- busyant 12y agoI apologize for hijacking the thread, but this is a moderately interesting story. My father was a child in central Italy during WWII. He was about 8 years old when the Americans pushed the German line north of his home town in 1944. My father tells a story about how after the Germans were safely gone, he and his friends raided an abandoned German supply depot near his home. Inside, they found an unusual typewriter with built-in rotary dials. They had no idea what it was, and eventually they carried it to a nearby field and blew it up with explosives that they also stole from the depot. I have no idea if it was an Enigma machine, but it kind of fits the description. Also, this is a tremendous story that took place near his hometown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Sasso_raid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Sasso_raid). Unfortunately, the bad guys pulled off the daring raid. *edits for clarity and I think the year was '44, but I don't recall clearly anymore.