Math: Public Secrets?

We tend to use a great deal of complex mathematics everyday. Or more correctly we tend to use technology that uses complex mathematics everyday. One such complex area is cryptography. When we log on to our bank account or our online email there's a lot of math going back and forth.

This isn't a post about how cryptography works. It isn't really a post about details of math and mathematical processes. Instead it's a post about unsung and unknown computer scientists who came up with the idea we now call public key cryptography and who haven't, until recently, received any recognition for their work.

The Alternative History of Public-Key Cryptography looks at one of the fundamental algorithms of our time. Whether or not you know it or understand it you use it daily. Like many of the ideas in the world of cryptography it was first conceived of in secret. Later it was rediscovered and brought to the world at large. Now it's time to give credit where credit is due.

Science: Speculation Leads to Deep Thoughts

Here is part of the definition of the word science as it was defined almost a century ago:

1. Knowledge; knowledge of principles and causes; ascertained truth of facts.

2. Accumulated and established knowledge, which has been systematized and formulated with reference to the discovery of general truths or the operation of general laws; knowledge classified and made available in work, life, or the search for truth; comprehensive, profound, or philosophical knowledge.

3. Especially, such knowledge when it relates to the physical world and its phenomena, the nature, constitution, and forces of matter, the qualities and function of living tissues, etc.; -- called also natural science, and physical science.

4. Any branch or departament of systematized knowledge considered as a distinct field of investigation or object of study; as, the science of astronomy, of chemistry, or of mind.

Thank you Webster's of 1912.

I don't think we'd disagree much on the definition. Science is knowledge. Science is principles and causes. Science is systematic fields of study.

But does it have to be? Is there some use of stepping outside the expected and speculating for a while? Maybe stepping outside of the typical can lead to some interesting speculation and ideas. Thought experiments have a long history in science. Why shouldn't idle speculation on seemingly absurd topics?

A couple of years ago Brian Trent wrote about a particular bit of speculation. The result was Was There Ever a Dinosaur Civilization?.

Now don't laugh. You may be thinking "but there wasn't a dinosaur civilization so it doesn't matter". But how do you know there wasn't one? If the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago then any evidence of a proto-civilization would be 65 million years old. What would such evidence have looked like then and what would it look like now?

But even if you think the idea is completely absurd it still leads to interesting speculation. What is a civilization? What happens in the early stages of civilizations? What physical and mental characteristics are required to create a civilization? Why did mammals evolve them when dinosaurs and other creatures did not? And why wasn't it until long after the dinosaurs went extinct that some mammals evolved that far?

Even a seemingly silly line of speculation can get you thinking about the causes of civilizations, the remains of early civilizations, and more. You can keep speculating and thinking beyond the article. Why did civilizations not fizzle out? What is the advantage that made civilized humans more successful than uncivilized ones? Was civilization inevitable? If it was inevitable for humans why wasn't it for others?

Brian's article is well written, footnoted, and thought provoking. A silly idea leads one to consider all sorts of scientific disciplines and ideas in detail. Not bad for some idle speculation.

Language: A Letter Long Since Lost

I like reading a lot of books and other texts about history. One interesting side effect of reading a lot of history is that I see snippets of old manuscripts. Usually short quotations and excerpts used to show how times once were. If you see enough of these old snippets of English you realize that we don't seem to use the same alphabet we once did.

One seemingly odd part of the English language was the long S. That slender letter that looks like a normal s that has been stretched vertically. In case you wish to use the long S Andrew West's BabelStone has a detailed post on The Rules for Long S. If knowing when to use it isn't enough he also has The Long and the Short of the Letter S. And if that isn't enough he also has R Rotunda part 1 and part 2.

If that isn't enough it turns out all of BabelStone is a true wonder of the Longer Web. Posts are infrequent but then they'd have to be. They are so thorough and comprehensive that it's hard to imagine the amount of work and effort that goes into each one. The most recent post is part 4 of a series on the ancient Chinese game of Liubo.

From the proper usage of long lost letters to information about a long lost board game. What's not to like? Didn't I say I like to read about history?

Games: Computer Games are American Right?

My early days with computers were positively cross Atlantic. My first computer was an Acorn Atom (the predecessor of the BBC Micro), I then migrated to one of the first PC clones. After time spent on DOS and Windows (among other systems) I moved on to the Commodore Amiga which was a favourite in Europe. I  used computers and program from both sides of the Atlantic.

One British game in particular kept me busy for quite a while - Elite. One of the first vast open games where you could do whatever you wanted. Back in 2003 The Guardian excerpted a chapter of Backroom Boys by Francis Spufford which tells the story of the creation of Elite.

Even though I was there when Space Invaders and Pac-Man and other simple repetitive arcade games were all the computer games there were it's hard to remember. We're spoiled for choice now. I think I'm starting to feel old. I almost wanted to start a sentence with "when I was young" or "when I was your age".

Who Invented the Personal Computer?

I'm not sure you can credit any one person with inventing the personal computer. Should we track down who first had the idea of a personal computer? Would that be a science fiction writer or futurist? Or would you want to find someone who envisioned something that could actually be made at the time it was dreamed up?

Do you select people who became rich and famous early on in the personal computer era? Steve and Steve or maybe Bill?

No matter what your own view a strong case is made by Ian Matthews for choosing Chuck Peddle as the inventor of the personal computer.

If you're asking yourself "Chuck who?" and you know a little of the history of personal computers than I can give you a quick answer. Chuck Peddle designed the 6502 microprocessor. That is only the beginning. Ian does a marvelous job building his case.

I am left with another question though. How many other relatively unknown people have changed the world of computers, or our world in general, and not received the credit due to them?

A Very Powerful Cocktail

In the complex web of history around World War II there are many intriguing story lines. There are threads with unintended consequences. In 1939 the Soviet Union invaded Finland. This invasion helped convince Hitler to invade the Soviet Union in 1941.

Why did the Soviet invasion of Finland help convince Hitler? Well... the Soviets had a very hard time invading Finland. The Finns essentially fought them to a draw and then negotiated a settlement. If a small band of Finns could hold off the Soviet Union, and in fact could humiliate it, then it must be easier to conquer then was once thought. The logic seemed flawless.

The logic was wrong of course. How one nation invades another is not necessarily a reflection of how it will defend itself on its home soil. How well the Soviets would fight to defend their homeland was different than how well they fought to invade Finland.

The logic was also wrong because it assumed the defeat of the Soviets was mostly due to the Soviets themselves. The tenacious ability of the Finns wasn't considered as important.

And were the Finns ever tenacious, tactically sound, and able. A Thousand Lakes of Red Blood on White Snow by Arto Bendiken is a wonderful explanation of how able the Finns were. It's an amazing story and you're guaranteed to learn some details you never knew before. Do you know why volatile liquid in glass bottles with a lit wick is called a Molotov Cocktail? Arto will tell explain. All while showing how a small nation of determined people humiliated one of the world's superpowers to defend their country and their way of life.

Let The Wookiee Win

I've brought up Star Wars before once or twice. There seems to be an insatiable appetite for new Star Wars shows, games, toys, and anything else Lucas Arts can license.

For the die hard fans of the first movie there is also an insatiable appetite to learn more about how George Lucas took some weird ideas and turned them into the classic movie that first took us far far away. I've mentioned the early treatments and scripts as well as Michael Kaminski's Secret History of Star Wars all before. But it turns out the research is ongoing.

Case in point is a very well researched article called George Lucas Stole Chewbacca, But It's Okay. I'm not sure I'll look at Han Solo's pal quite the same way ever again.

A Computer That Travelled To The Moon

The first computer I spent much time in front of was a 1mhz 6502 based computer with 12K of RAM and hooked up to a TV to display 256 by 192 black and white pixels and all programs were loaded and saved to cassette tapes.

Yet that was huge compared to the computer that controlled the Apollo Lunar Modules. The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) had 2048 words of magnetic core memory and 36 kilowords of read only core rope memory. The interface was a few rows of segmented displays that showed the contents of some registers, some blinking lights, and a tiny pushbutton keyboard.

That's it. That's what it took to get two people down to the moon and back up again.

It turns out there are simulators and emulators that allow you to use almost every variation of the AGC ever produced. You can marvel yourself at one very compact and amazing piece of programming.

In case you want to know a bit more about the AGC and what it took to make it work may I suggest Tales From The Lunar Module Guidance Computer by Don Eyles. If you want to understand the design, the programming, and the decisions that went into the AGC there is no better place to go.

Food: The Language of Food

Occasionally I come across orphan web sites that I hope never fade away. The Language of Food by Dan Jurafsky is a blog that contains just four posts. Four long extraordinary posts on the history of food written over four months in 2009.

Illustrated, well researched, and completely fascinating glimpses into the history and language of food. Dig in and enjoy.

From Green Toilets to a Famous Hominid

Wayne is at it again. This time sending me a link that had me digging into the depths of porcelain archeology and sent me all the way to one of our ancestors.

He sent me a link to the Wired article Pissing Match: Is the World Ready for the Waterless Urinal? The world may need a waterless urinal especially in areas where there are water shortages. After all a busy urinal may use 40,000 gallons of water a year. The article itself goes into the politics and problems of trying to get plumbing codes changed to allow the urinals to be used. One major code was changed to allow for waterless urinals as long as a water pipe was run to that area of the bathroom and then capped. While this may sound silly, redundant, and like a make work project put forth by the plumbers unions (which it was) it also means that if you decide you don't like the waterless urinal there is already a water pipe in place for its replacement.

The fascinating recent history of the waterless urinal isn't enough though. I know it isn't. Don't worry... there's a lot more out there if you go looking.

Theplumber.com has been online since 1994 with advice and links on all the issues you can imagine relating to plumbing. Heck the site still looks like it's in the late 90s. Amongst all the usefull and practical advice is a history of plumbing. A similar site toiletology has another history online though in keeping with the site it is more specifically the history of the toilet and not just plumbing. Toiletology also has been online for a while and, like theplumber, looks like it hasn't been redesigned for over a decade. If you want a more tongue in cheek history of the urinal from Gracesdad's blog Normal Chaos.

But even those histories, as well researched as any history you will find online, are nothing compared to the power of Wayne's Law when applied to the word urinal. Take the word... add "www." to the beginning... and start adding net suffixes until... voila... there is a site called www.urinal.net. Calling itself the "best place to piss away your time on the Internet" it is a priceless treasure.

It is a site where people submit photos of urinals around the world. You can gaze at the wonders of the Top Ten Urinals in the World (truly well worth a look) and behold the interactive Urinal Map. Think of what you can learn while browsing pictures of urinals around the world. Did you know that The Cleveland Museum of Natural History held the remains of Lucy for a while before returning them to Ethiopia? Neither did I until I read the caption under the picture of the museum's porcelain and went digging a little.

At which point I stepped away from the browser before I kept going. Who knows where I could have ended up if I kept surfing.

The Senses: I Love the Smell of History in the Morning

The middle ages. A thousand years of European history after antiquity. A period of superstition and ignorance. Just thinking of the period brings vivid images to mind.

If I try and picture that time in European history I think of bad weather and dirt and grime. Of people struggling to survive. Of western culture having fallen from the heights of the ancients to the grim reality of those dark centuries. Dark homes filled with smoke. People living short, nasty, and brutish lives while working towards their eternal reward.

So what was it really like back then? Was it dirty? Did people just smell bad or were there alternatives?

Luckily for us Jenne Heise's collection of information and writings is still online. Simply entitled Jenne Heise / Jadwiga Zajaczkowa the site is a collection of herbal lore, medieval recipes, and historic research that seems to be untouched since 2005.

The internet has a tendency to make it easy for parts of the web to vanish. Sites vanish without a trace. Web pages are replaced or updated leaving no sign of what came before. But once in a while an old web page sticks around. Forgotten? Left behind? Who knows. For now this resource is still available and what a resource it is. You'll find:

• A listing of scents and perfumes. Fresh dill seeds were tucked into cradles to sooth babies.
• A discussion of people's attitudes towards bathing. Did you even suspect that church fathers condemned excessive attendance of public baths?
• Details of mouthwash and dental hygene products. With details of how each worked when tried.
• Even a collection of period mustard recipes as they where originally written down.

This isn't dry history. The past brought alive by showing us the seemingly mundane details of daily life. This is how people lived. History comes to life. Being brought to life is apt because the site is written primarily for members of the Society for Creative Anachronism.

Solid scholarship joined with enthusiasm and energy makes Jenne Heise's site a treasure.

A Successful Southern Insurgency?

The Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 60s was a "reform movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against African Americans and restoring Suffrage in Southern states". We look back at it as an inevitable change in American history. When skillfully coordinated use of non-violent protests and various types of civil disobedience altered the political and cultural landscape of America.

That's one way to look at it. There is another way. Was Martin Luther King Jr. the most visible leader of a homegrown insurgency in the United States?

Historian Mark Grimsley has taken that rather unique perspective on the American Civil Rights Movement. He asks that you think of the movement as an insurgency. Why the Civil Rights Movement Was an Insurgency makes the case. His makes a great deal of sense even if the idea doesn't feel right at first. There are good reasons to think about it that way.

He also gave a talk on this idea as part of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center's Perspectives in Military History Lecture Series. Scroll down about half the page to view or download the talk.

Mark is a boisterous speaker. He gets all wound up about his subject. He makes many great points throughout the talk. That the movement's success wasn't inevitable. That the movement wasn't a single coordinated effort. And that the movement had it's share of outright failures along the way. The questions at the end bring up good points as well so don't stop watching too early.

In the spirit of the web he even gives over an entire blog entry on his site to a letter that challenges this view of the civil rights movement and worries that: "As I see it, to suggest that legal, first amendment redress of one's government is a form of insurgency is playing with fire,...". My own take on the letter is that protests that are 'legal first amendment redresses' do not make up an insurgency. Protests, violent or not, that break laws and force authorities to respond can be an insurgency. I think the writer swings the pendulum too far.

More importantly I think it's necessary to at least consider the idea that the Civil Rights Movement was an insurgency. Does an insurgency have to be violent? Or can it just incite violence from law enforcement? This is only the beginning of the questions that come to mind. I'm not sure it's comfortable to know that movements in our own countries that aim to change the political landscape can be insurgencies. After all insurgencies don't happen here. They happen over there. Right?

Historically not all insurgencies succeed. Even the most noble, worthy, and just causes don't have to achieve their goals. The Civil Rights Movement did achieve some of its goals when President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It covered desegregation but did not fully cover giving Southern blacks the right to vote. Martin Luther King Jr. wanted Johnson to do more. Johnson pushed back saying that there was enough change for now and voting rights would have to wait. The movement continued its campaign.

After Selma and 'Bloody Sunday' President Johnson sent a draft Voting Rights Bill to Congress. It became the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Implementing and enforcing the laws and registering voters, would take time. Changing economic and social inequality would take much longer. The debate on if, or when, the true equality was achieved is still ongoing. However in terms of changing the political landscape, which is the political goal of an insurgency, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the "culminating point of victory".

The laws changed. Racial discrimination was no longer legal. Suffrage was in place.

The United States was formed in a revolution. It survived a civil war. It also may have had an internal insurgency that managed to successfully alter the fabric of American life. Altered for the better but altered nonetheless.

I must admit even the thought makes me think of history, in America and here in Canada, in a new light.

There is question that Mark Grimsley raises only in passing in the talk but addresses in more detail in the article. What would have happened if the political changes didn't get signed into law before the Black Power movement started?

The public explosion of the Black Power movement (the Watts riots) started days after the Voting Rights Act was signed. If this had occurred any earlier, if the nation's televisions had images of rioting violent blacks and not non-violent protesters being beaten and arrested by overzealous southern police departments, would the Voting Rights Act have become law? Would the rest of America have much stomach for granting voting rights? Could the very existence of groups like the Black Panthers have prevented or delayed the changes to the law? What would America have been like if suffrage hadn't been extended in 1965?

He points out that:

The Black Power movement generated a new pride among blacks, in their history, their culture, and themselves. It was in that respect indispensable. But it effectively ended all prospect of a renewal of the insurgency that might have added economic justice to legal and political rights.

History isn't inevitable. In this case the insurgency (if it was an insurgency) worked. There had never been any guarantees though. Isn't that why it was called a struggle?

I'm not sure if Mark Grimsley is the type of historian who plays the game of what-if. Some historians don't like to stray to far from what happened. Regardless of his own views he ends the article by allowing someone else to play what-if and describe what the alternative might have been:

It is fortunate for many reasons that the insurgency succeeded, and fortunate that its emphasis on nonviolent resistance won the battle for the Southern population. It not only mobilized black Southerners but also succeeded in the key task of detaching from die-hard segregationists the Southern white moderates unwilling to pay the price of a continued system of apartheid. Had that not occurred, said a former King aide, "the South today would look like Beirut looks today."