12th March 2002: "Cryptography - from Enigma to the Information Age"

Encryption provides the locks and keys of Information. Simon Singh, author of Fermat's Last Theorem and The Code Book, will give a brief history of cryptography and then discuss its impact in the 21st century. This is the technology that enables private emails to be sent and secure business transactions to take place over the Internet, but is it really secure enough, or alternatively is it too secure? He will have with him a genuine Enigma cipher machine...

Simon Singh completed his PhD in particle physics at Cambridge and CERN. In 1991 he joined the BBC Science Department and worked as a producer and director with "Tomorrow's World" and "Horizon". He is also the author of "Fermat's Last Theorem" and "The Code Book", the latter forming the basis for a Channel 4 series on the history of codes and codebreaking entitled "The Science of Secrecy".