The story of
the Enigma is a combination of technology, military
history and the mysterious world of espionage, code
breakers and intelligence. As it happens, these are the
perfect ingredients to attract the attention of young
people. Enigma therefore provides the perfect subject to
stimulate students to explore maths and history.
Boring School Subjects
Imagine the response of your students
if you tell them that you're going to talk about the
Second World War and the invasion of Poland. They fall
into a coma. But what if you tell about a code machine on
German U-boats, top secret missions to capture code
books, and students that were picked out of college to
work on the largest and utmost secret code breaking
project in history? What skills would your students need
to crack top secret German codes? You will have all eyes
and ears in your classroom!
The story of the Enigma machine is
ideal to get your students interested. As they dive into
this story, they will discover other amazing wartime
events. Of course, once interested in those Polish top
ace codebreakers, it's a small leap to the invasions of
Poland. Once they learned about the U-boat communications
and how Bletchley Park located those iron sharks, it's a
small step to the history of naval warfare and Enigma's
decisive role in the Atlantic, North Africa and during
D-day.
Exciting Mathematics
There's more than history! Math plays a
crucial role in breaking codes. Enigma is the perfect way
to show your students that maths can make the difference.
Brilliant people like Alan Turing and Max Newton,
founders of computer history, were ace code breakers in
Bletchley Park. And it all started with maths! How many
possible combinations are there to place the rotors in
the Enigma and how much more complicated is a
Kriegsmarine Enigma?
There are also many pencil-and-paper
codes that are, easy to apply and some can be broken by
simple methods like letter frequency analysis. And we
even didn't talk about the Colossus, the first computer
ever, build to crack German messages, encrypted with the
Lorenz machine. Cryptography, math and linguistics
provide so many opportunities for interesting
assignments.
Make History and Technology Tangible
Libby Tawes is a fine example of how
history and cryptology can inspire you. Through Olin
College's Sketch Model Program fellowship she worked as
an intern at the Graveyard of the Atlantic
Museum
in
Hatteras. Her major assignment was to research and design
an exhibit about the Enigma machine. The museum displays
the well known naval Enigma with serial M2946, recovered
from U-boat U-85. Libby asked permission to use my Enigma
simulator at the museum, but her work as an intern turned
out far more interesting.
Her goal was to design an interactive
visualisation of the Enigma. The idea was to demonstrate
the encryption process in real time with
electroluminescent wire that represented the Enigma
rotors and their internal wiring, and she got her chance
when she returned that fall to her Principles of
Engineering class at Olin College. The main goal of that
class was to build an electromechanical system.
When the project started, she was
randomly assigned a team of five and proposed her
interactive visualisation of the Enigma as the team's
class project. Her teammates Dan, Bryce, Corey and
Shyheim were enthused and set off to build the
interactive Enigma. Corey co-lead the electrical subteam
with Bryce, who also contributed to the software subteam.
Daniel was the lead for the mechanical subteam and also
contributed to programming. Shyheim worked mainly in the
mechanical subteam but also on CAD and programming.
Libby, as resident mechanical engineer, contributed
mainly to the overall organisation and in managing the
team. After eight weeks of intense work they had created
an operational version and posted their progress on a
website (click the images below).
The Olin Enigma Team
©
Enigma POE Team
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The initial design for the
Enigma rotor wirings
©
Enigma POE Team
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Their machine at the demo day
©
Enigma POE Team
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Note: Some Olin
College links are temporarily replaced by their Internet
Archive versions as they launched a new website and still
have links to migrate.
You can visit The Enigma Machine - A
Fresh Take on an Historic Machine
(archive link
) from the Olin
team members, but make sure to click all the "Learn
More" links to discover all the photos, nuts and
bolts of their fantastic interactive visualisation
project at the Principles of Engineering
class
from Olin College of Engineering
. The class
stimulates students to work as a team to design,
construct and test electromechanical systems while
learning development and production processes. More about
Libby's fellowship at Olin College's Sketch
Model Program
and
how she got inspired at Cracking The Code
.
Libby's story is a wonderful example of
how Enigma and its history can inspire young people. When
she learned about the Enigma machine, she was not only
inspired to visualise the machine's encryption process.
She also tickled the interest of her team members to
embark on a project that in turn is designed to
interactively get others interested in Enigma and its
history.
A resident student in a museum is all
you need to turn seemingly boring subjects like
cryptography and WW2 history into a fascinating project
by engineering students. Or how history can spark the
imagination of young people to become better students.
That's why we document history and make it available at
Cipher Machines and Cryptology. History is there to
share!
The Enigma machine that inspired Libby
comes with a fascinating story. Divers recovered Enigma M2946
in 2001 from the
wreck of the German U-boat U-85. The destroyer USS Roper
sunk U-85 by gunfire on April 14, 1942 in the North
Atlantic near Cape Hatteras where the museum is located.
U-85 was part of Operation Drumbeat
(Unternehmen
Paukenschlag) to attack American ships in their own
coastal waters. U-85 was lost with all hands aboard. More
about U-85 at the U-boat Archive
and on U-boat.net
. The Enigma is now displayed at the Graveyard of the Atlantic
Museum
.
Do It!
If you're interested in using the story
of Enigma in your school, this website is a great place
to start collecting information on the subject. Of
course, there are many other sources, especially on WW2
history, and I have put in many links to additional
information. You can get a taste of code breaking
excitement by visiting my Enigma Cipher Challenge.
Create your own codebreaking challenge at school, where
the students decipher encrypted messages that contain
important historical events, and let them research that
history. You can even make a paper version of the
Enigma
.
Teaching about the Cold War? Start with
the development of the nuclear bombe, add a high profile
espionage case and demonstrate your pupils modular
arithmetic by teaching them how to decipher a one-time
pad message. Explain
letter-frequency analysis, as used in Edgar Allan Poe's
Gold-Bug. This way, they learn
to apply maths and they like it! Of course, there are
many other ways to create a fascinating project in your
class. If you have any questions regarding cryptography,
the Enigma or other cipher machines and their role in
history for your school project, then contact me!