Are we looking at some sort of steampunk time machine? Not quite, but these clock-like rotors did help alter the course of history. The action took place during World War II at England"s Bletchley Park, a country estate that served as a top-secret facility. An assembled team, including the pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing, developed this device, known as a Bombe machine. It was instrumental in cracking the Germans" "uncrackable" Enigma code, which was used for encrypting secret messages in German war operations. The Enigma code was itself generated by a rotor-driven machine that re-scrambled the code each day—so the Bombe mirrored those mechanics to keep up with the changing encryption. Insights the Bombe and other programmable machines provided into enemy military plans helped to speed the Allies" eventual triumph—some even argue that the codebreakers" efforts won the war.
It s Computer Science Education Week
Today in History
More Desktop Wallpapers:
-
Smoking nights in Austria
-
Lake Bled, Slovenia
-
Reflecting on one of the world s strangest rivers
-
The puffin-rabbit connection
-
High above the reef
-
Schönbrunn Palace Park, Vienna, Austria
-
Think deep thoughts
-
Travels to the Oregon deep
-
Happy Thanksgiving
-
And you thought moths were boring
-
From the mind of Frank Gehry
-
It s Republic Day in India
-
Cherry blossoms at the National Mall, Washington, DC
-
Seattle Central Library, Seattle, Washington
-
Red lechwe, Okavango Delta, Botswana
-
Lionfish off the coast of Indonesia
-
National Take a Hike Day
-
Ponta Delgada
-
Ölüdeniz, Turkey
-
Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia
-
Queen Elizabeth s Platinum Jubilee
-
Terraced rice fields, Yuanyang County, China
-
Grand finish of Le Tour
-
Art Basel Miami Beach
-
Happy birthday to the Peak!
-
Burrowing owls
-
Bear Hole Brook, Catskill Mountains, New York
-
A grand event
-
Al-Khazneh in Petra, Jordan
-
Celebrating migrations