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January 13, 2006
Winners and Thanks
At last we can announce the winners of the 2005 National Cipher Challenge. We have three main prizes to award this year:
The IBM Prize (a thinkpad laptop and accessories) has been awarded to Tom Long of The Gryphon School, Dorset. Lying in a distant 8th place at the end of Round 7 he finished the final challenge in great style to win the overall Challenge.
The GCHQ Prize (£1,000) is awarded to Naomi Miller, Laura Bowlby, Chloë Brown, Karina Morrison, Natasha Morrison, and Abi Schultz of Oxford High School. With a team that talented the future of British Mathematics seems assured.
The Trinity College Prize (£700) is awarded to Benjamin Caller of The King David High School, Manchester. Ben is an old hand at the National Cipher Challenge and this award is well deserved.
It has been another fantastic year for the National Cipher Challenge and I hope you have all enjoyed it as much as we have. I would like to express my thanks to Rebecca, who some of you will know has been handling the Prize cheques this year and to Jim Renshaw who kept the website going against your onslaught. My Applied Mathematics colleague Chris Howls suggested many of the interesting historical nuggets which gave the story some life, though all the errors in it were mine. The story itself was of course complete fiction. In the 1960's satellite tecnology was insufficiently advanced to develop a Global Positioning System. Beyond that the technology of GPS is astonishingly complicated and uses Special Relativity and General Relativity to get the clocks sufficiently in sync for it to work. The mathematics behind it goes back to Riemann's invention of differential geometry in the nineteenth century, another great example of the power of blue skies research. If anyone asks what's the point of pure mathematics it is a beautiful example. The boat was named the Michael Five by B, J and E. They know who they are. Thanks guys.
The Challenge is generously sponsored by the EPSRC, the main research funding body for Mathematics in teh UK and we should record our gratitude to their Public Partnerships for Awareness Programme. funding for the Challenge lasts one more year so we can promise at least that we will be back inSpetmebr 2006, beyond that I can't make promises. If you or someone you know might be able to support the Challenge in the future please let us know.
The Prizegiving ceremony will be at Bletchley Park on the afternoon of March 31st and I hope to see some of you then. There is still time to put your name down for entry into the ticket lottery which will be held on Froday 20th January, so email us if you would like to be considered. The afternoon will include a tour of the Bletchley Park museum of Cryptography which is always good fun.
There will be some part A prizes for Challenge 8, watch this space for the announcement.
Finally we are still trying to organise a National Cipher Challenge forum to run throughout the year, but in the meantime will keep this site open for comments.
Oh, and as Steve Jobs would say: "One more thing". We are always scouting for talent in the School of Mathematics at the University of Southampton. If you are thinking of studying for a mathematics degree get in touch we have open days in the summer and we will be announcing a Cipher Challenge party here on our campus sometime in late spring, It would be great if you could come down.
Thanks again to all of you for your enthusiasm, and I hope to see you again for the next Challenge. Keep in touch,
Posted by Harry at January 13, 2006 09:45 AM
Comments
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Jane S, there IS text there, really! It's just that it's a secret message subject to steganography (see Simon Singh's The Code Book, pages 4-5)... (Don't stay up all night looking for it, though!) ;-)
Posted by: shroo at January 20, 2006 07:41 AM
why is there a blank space at bottom of this page?
[I don't know, why is there a blank space at the bottom of this page? (I hope this is a good joke, I need a laugh) Harry]
Posted by: jane s at January 19, 2006 12:42 PM
congratulation everybody :)
i didnt do challenge 8 in the end - i gave up after a week and thought, "what the heck, im going christmas shopping" however, i wouldnt have got a prize anyway, because 8 people had already cracked it, so i dont suppose its an excuse ;)
i finished 30th though, so im pretty chuffed - good compared to 180th last year.
thank you harry for a great challenge - im really looking forward to next year; and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next :P
will we get an opputunity to feedback this year? i would like to see a few additions on the site, like a counter etc.
thanks again, and congratulations!!!
chidders
[Thanks, Chidders. Good idea about feedback. I'll start a discussion about it. Harry]
Posted by: chidders at January 16, 2006 02:13 PM
Thanks 'Harry' - it's been a great challenge; unfortunately I won't be able to take part in next years competition.
I've finally solved the last cipher - my programme works, but only if you put in the correct numbers for the 'wirings' in. Thanks to CipherTigers for their excel programme which allowed me to work them out (I did a slightly different method). Nevertheless, its all done now, bar a few errors in the 'wirings' that I cannot find at the moment - but its legible.
Thanks again, and congratulations to all the winners!
Posted by: Stephen Harris at January 15, 2006 09:13 PM
Gratz all for a great challenge and good work Tom - I wouldn't have minded a new computer ;).
Looking forward to next year :).
Kati
Posted by: Katriel Cohn-Gordon at January 14, 2006 09:12 AM
Just like to say, thanks for yet another great opportunity and for all the hard work Harry and the team have done to make this possible. Hope to see everyone (and even more faces) next year.
Thanks again,
Rob :)
P.S. I spent my £25 prize on two Mathematical Books (Yeah I know - how sad :P)
Posted by: Rob at January 13, 2006 09:11 PM
Well done to all involved. But alack, since I was on holiday during the final week of the Challenge, I failed to realise my (fairly stupid) mistake until too late: I assumed the crib would be at the beginning of the ciphertext :( Who knows how my programs would have done otherwise :P Still. Development now begins for next year. Woo.
:D
Posted by: Ian at January 13, 2006 08:14 PM
Yay go Harry! this was a great cipher challenge and i hope it is back next year!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Mark at January 13, 2006 04:09 PM
Congratulations to all the winners!
If only I'd realized my mistake on 8B earlier. So close.
Not even a part A prize this year. Ah well, there's always next year.
[Note that we haven't announced the Challenge 8A prizes ye tso there is still a chance. Harry]
Posted by: Mike at January 13, 2006 02:34 PM
well done absolutely EVERYONE who took part, i definately know which field of work i am looking to get into now, ive developed a real love of ciphers :) well done to the winners have fun at bletchley and i may even see you there :) and i hope everyone will come to southampton for the mass gathering :) well done again and i hope to talk to you all again next year :)
Posted by: Martyn Comton at January 13, 2006 02:07 PM
well done tom long. you must have done b really fast to go from =9 to 1. and large girl team (go the girls). how do you all get together or do you all do it separately and see who does it 1st? and benjamin caller.
Posted by: jane s at January 13, 2006 10:35 AM