Secrecy Cryptography Ciphers
Simon Singh's The Code Book
Simon Singh is a physicist and he wrote the book Fermat's Last Theorem. As such, he is well placed to author this history of codes. He approaches the subject from the point of view of linguistics, mathematics, science, technology and history.
The text is illustrated with many examples of code and the colourful personalities behind them (Mary Queen of Scots, for example).
Singh looks at code-creation and code-breaking from military espionage to modern computers as he charts the evolution of codes and their relevance today.
At the end of the book, Singh includes a world-wide Cipher Challenge. He offered a massive reward to the first reader to successfully crack it. Maybe you should pop in to the shop, buy a copy and have a go at winning the 10,000 pounds!
