History of Math and Technology
A blog covering the history of STEM and how we got to where we are.
Cryptography in World War II: The Secret War Behind the Front Lines When we think of World War II, images of tanks, planes, and soldiers often come to mind. Yet behind the battles on land, sea, and air, there was another war being waged in silence—one fought with ciphers, codes, and machines. This was the …
Cryptography—the science of encoding and protecting information—has shaped human civilization for over two thousand years. From the simple substitution ciphers of the Romans to the complex algorithms powering today’s digital security, cryptography reflects humanity’s dual desire for secrecy and communication. At its heart lies mathematics, the universal language that makes encryption possible. The story of …
Imagine being Julius Caesar, commanding armies across Europe in the 1st century BCE. You need to send orders to your generals, but enemy eyes are everywhere. How do you keep your plans safe? The solution was elegant: the Caesar Cipher, a simple but effective method of shifting letters in the alphabet to disguise messages. Today …