Cognitive Science

Coding

Modified: 2024-01-19 8:36 AM CST

:

Watch the NOVA show on coding (six 10 minute episodes, see below) and answer the following questions while you watch. FYI, the movie The Imitation Game only mildly fictionalizes the details of Turing's work at Bletchley Park.

Videos:
Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hAzmh6XSr8

Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZx7g1aXyzg

Part 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXsqrSCRoa8&t=4s

Part 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bVVe_F28pw

Part 5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlHUvuXfxx8

Part 6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSQNuV0DHR8

Answer these questions (to yourself)

What is a substitution cypher?

What was installed on top of the Admiralty Building in London?

What telegram was leaked to the USA by the British?

The coding machine the Germans used in WWII was called?

The code name for the Japanese diplomatic code was?

How did the US Navy code breakers infer that Midway Island was the target?

The U-Boat code eventually used how many Enigma rotors?

At the National Cash Register Company women worked doing what?

Alan Turing and the British code breakers worked at an estate called?

How many pieces of the Japanese Naval Code machine remain?

Here are the Answers

Here is the cover of a recent book. It details the work performed by the women described in the videos. I liked the part where the woman in the video relates how they were warned that they would be shot if they ever revealed their work. As Mundy writes in her book, some of those women went to their graves never having told anyone about the work they had done during World War II.

UPC vs QR

Back to Psychology