Craig Bauer
Topic Areas:
Cryptology (both historical and mathematical aspects), enumerative combinatorics.
Prepared Talks:
- Cryptology on Campus During WW II
- A large number of colleges and universities were involved in offering cryptology classes in the 1940s. There was a tremendous amount of diversity in who delivered the classes. The professors were not all mathematicians, but rather came from departments that included Astronomy, Classics, English, Geology, Greek, Psychology, and Philosophy. Some of these classes were open to all students, while others were run with great secrecy and open only by invitation. These classes are detailed along with the backgrounds of the instructors and the role they played in the war.
- The Cryptologic Contributions of Dr. Donald Menzel
- Dr. Donald H. Menzel is well known for his work in astronomy, but his cryptologic work (long secret) has attracted much less attention. This talk describes how his interest in this area was first sparked and provides the details of the secret class he led in "Naval Communications" (really cryptanalysis) at Radcliffe College during World War II. This class served as a prototype and was copied elsewhere. A sketch of some of the classified work he carried out during the war, and after, as a consultant, is also included, along with a brief over-view of Menzel’s personality and other interests.
- Cracking Matrix Encryption Row by Row
- The Hill Cipher, also known as matrix encryption, uses matrices to encipher and decipher text. Various attacks, such as those found by Jack Levine, have been published for this system. This talk reviews a few previous results and presents a powerful new attack in which the rows of the matrix can be determined independent of one another, greatly reducing the amount of time needed for decipherment.
- A New Connection Between the Triangles of Stirling and Pascal
- An enumeration problem involving matrices is seen to give rise to Pascal's triangle, Stirling's triangle, and infinitely many other new triangles. Some special properties of the better known triangles are related and analagous results for the new triangles are investigated. This is an open problem with much work still to be done and best of all, it is appropriate for undergraduate contemplation!
Contact Information:
- Institution: York College of Pennsylvania
- Phone Number: (717) 815-6408
- e-Mail Address: cbauer@ycp.edu
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