Showing papers in "Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK–12 in 1984"

Cryptanalysis in World War II ?and Mathematics Education

Abstract: War (1914-18), so far as Britain was concerned, was that no effective use was made of the skills and talents of young British scientists, mathematicians, en gineers, and experts in other relevant areas. Such people simply entered the armed services, usually the army, and fought in the infantry and other combat battalions. I am not arguing that the lives of such specialists are inherently more valuable than those of other mortals and that they should therefore be kept safe, but it is surely obvious that such people should be using their skill and expertise in the war effort, rather than doing a job that could be done equally well by somebody else. (Indeed, one may lament the death in two world wars of some of England's finest young poets : Rupert Brooke in World War I and Sidney Keyes in World War II. It is hard to argue that they should have been excused from conscription, but their loss was a heavy one.) Fortunately, by the time of the Second World War, this lesson had been learned, and those with skills relevant to the ef fective conduct of the war were employed, broadly speaking, where they could be most useful. Thus it came about that a somewhat motley collection of young (and, in a few cases, not so young) mathematicians were gathered together in Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, England, to participate in the astonishing enterprise of trying to decipher German (and Japanese) codes. The intention was nothing less than the daily reading of the secret signals passing be tween the German High Command, its ships at sea (including U-boats), air force, and army groups, and this goal was successfully This article is based on an invited lecture at the

Advanced Placement Computer Science.

Abstract: COURSE DESCRIPTION This Java-based, introductory college-level course is geared toward a more object-oriented style of programming. The course meets the requirements set forth in the syllabus of the College Board. Topics include computer systems, object-oriented program design concepts and implementation, classes, strings, arrays, recursion, data structures and analysis of algorithms. Standard Java classes and methods will be used.