The Science of Secrecy: The Secret History of Codes and Code-breaking
Singh is holder of a Cambridge PhD in physics, former BBC TV producer of Tomorrow's World and author of Fermat's Last Theorem, a 1997 bestseller and BAFTA documentary award winner for the accompanying programme he co-directed in the Horizon series. He has achieved another intriguing, brain-exercising work that has already won considerable success in its first form as The Codebook. This version is a tie-in with the Channel 4 series which Singh will present in five parts relating to the book during November and December. Among the accounts are how the Crimean War's course was changed by the cracking of the "unbreakable" Vigenere cipher, deciphering the code behind the doomed Babington Plot to free Mary, Queen of Scots, the solving of the Zimmermann telegram that altered the outcome of the First World War, and reading the ancient hieroglyphics which revealed the language of the Egyptians. Singh also looks at contemporary challenges and problems concerning Internet security and the invention of public key encryption in a fascinating book that should emulate the success of Fermat's Last Theorem.