Encrypted messages and espionage are coming to St. Catharines.
On Jan. 26, presented by the Brock University Faculty of Mathematics and sponsored by the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society, comes “Beyond the Imitation Game — From Dieppe and James Bond to Blackberry and Quantum Encryption,” a presentation about the Enigma machine and its lasting impacts.
The Enigma machine was a World War II-era encryption device used by the Germans to transmit coded messages. For a while, these codes seemed impossible to crack, meaning German activity was completely obscured from the Allies.
That changed when Alan Turing helmed the research that led to the design of the Bombe machine, a device that could crack the codes of the Enigma machine and gain intelligence on German attacks and missions.
It was an outstanding achievement, and critical in the Allies’ victory of the war. The story was adapted into a film in 2014, The Imitation Game. The FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre is hosting a screening of the film on Jan. 21 at 6:30 p.m., an “essential” pairing with the Jan. 26 presentation.
Leading the presentation will be Peter Burg, the Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Science at Brock; Richard Brisson, a mathematician and collector of cryptology artifacts; and Thomas Jennewein, an Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing. The event will be pay-what-you-can, with a suggested admission price of $20.
Alongside the story of the Enigma machine and Allied attempts to break its encryptions, the presentation will explore the lasting implications it had on history, modern espionage and encryption technology, and will feature live presentations of Enigma artifacts. The event will run from 7 to 9:30 p.m., and tickets can be purchased here.
To get even more information on the subject, students can attend additional lectures at Brock from Brisson and Jennewein.
On Jan. 26 from 1 to 2 p.m., Brisson is delivering a lecture on Cryptologic History and Canada, entailing important instances of Canadian cryptologic history in the 18th and 19th centuries, World War II and the Cold War.
Also, on Jan. 26 from 1 to 2 p.m., Jennewein is delivering a technical talk on Quantum Physics. Both his and Brisson’s lectures will be free and open to Brock students and anyone else in the community who’s interested.
Students interested in history, cryptology and physics should check out this series of events relating to one of the most technologically innovative machines in history.
