Cryptology (SECRET CODES) with Simon Singh

Oh hey, it's the sweatshirt that you will never get back from them, Allie Ward. And I have wanted to cover secret codes and cryptology for years and years. And I thought one day I'll go to Maryland and interview someone at the National Cryptologic Museum. And then I realized that it's runned by the National Security Agency. And I was like, they're gonna be tight-lipped, they're not gonna give up the goods.

So then a little more digging unearthed a better more perfect guest, the guy who wrote the literal book on code breaking, titled The Code Book, The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography. Done. He's in. He's a PhD theoretical particle physicist by training, an author by trade now, and has worked at CERN,

And the BBC even made a BAFTA-winning documentary about a mathematician called Ferma's Last Theorem. He's also the author of the books Big Bang, The Origin of the Universe, and The Simpsons and their mathematical secrets. He knows so much about the function and history of secret ciphers and code breaking and has several additional honorary degrees. And he joined the video chat with a salt and pepper mohawk and for some reason a mic and earbuds. that refuse to play ball with our recording software.

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (75 minutes, 13,042 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 10 episodes for $5, and monthly plans are cheaper still.