73 Quotes by Simon Singh

Quantum cryptography would mark the end of the battle between codemakers and codebreakers, the codemakers emerging victorious, because quantum cryptography is a truly unbreakable system of encryption.

Romantics might like to think of themselves as being composed of stardust. Cynics might prefer to think of themselves as nuclear waste.

Enigma was considered invulnerable, until the Poles revealed its weaknesses.

Although this may seem a paradox, all exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation.

This apparently innocuous observation would lead to the first great breakthrough in cryptanalysis.

Maths is one of the purest forms of thought, and to outsiders mathematicians may seem almost other-worldly.

Proof is what lies at the heart of maths, and is what marks it out from other sciences. Other sciences have hypotheses that are tested against experimental evidence until they fail, and are overtaken by new hypotheses. In maths, absolute proof is the goal, and once something is proved, it is proved forever, with no room for change.

The first known European book to describe the use of cryptography was written in the thirteenth century by the English Franciscan monk and polymath Roger Bacon. Epistle on the Secret Works of Art and the Nullity of Magic included seven methods for keeping messages secret, and cautioned: “A man is crazy who writes a secret in any other way than one which will conceal it from the vulgar.

Scientific proof is inevitably fickle and shoddy. On the other hand mathematical proof is absolute and devoid of doubt.