Enigma

Alan Turing – brilliant mathematician, code breaker during World War II – achieved so much during his tragically short life. But how do you put Turing's life and mathematics on stage... and as a musical?

A quick look at the role of mathematics in communication — from making and breaking codes to making sure messages arrive intact.

Almost nothing tangible remains of the legendary Bletchley Park codebreaker Alan Turing. So when an extremely rare collection of papers relating to his life and work was set to go to auction last year, an ambitious campaign was launched to raise funds to purchase them for the Bletchley Park Trust and its Museum. The Trust has announced today that the collection has been saved for the nation as the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) has stepped in quickly to provide £213,437, the final piece of funding required.

Alan Turing is the father of computer science and contributed significantly to the WW2 effort, but his life came to a tragic end. Stefan Kopieczek explores his story.

During the Second World War, the Allies' codebreakers worked at Bletchley Park to decipher the supposedly unbreakable Enigma code. Claire Ellis tells us about their heroic efforts, which historians believe shortened the war by two years.

In the first of two articles, Artur Ekert takes a tour through the history of codes and the prospects for truly unbreakable quantum cryptography.