Enigma Crypto Machine / Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci - Milano

Shot laying in front of the (empty) bank vault in Frankfurt.

Michele Reilly is a scientist, an artist, and a systems thinker whose work resists easy classification. She trained in architecture and art at Cooper Union, where she began building intelligent machines and quickly became fascinated by the logic behind them. That curiosity drew her into mathematics, cryptography, macroeconomics, and eventually quantum physics. Her path has been shaped less by credentials than by the depth of her questions.

 

At MIT, where she teaches in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Michele works at the intersection of computation and the structure of spacetime. She explores how information flows through the universe, drawing from Claude Shannon’s foundational theories and extending them into the quantum realm. Her research is ambitious, but it is rooted in careful thinking. She is not interested in speculation for its own sake. She wants to know what can be built, what can be measured, and what will last.

 

In 2016, she co-founded Turing, a quantum technology startup focused on building portable quantum memories and tools for long-distance quantum communication. She works closely with physicist Seth Lloyd on designing the scalable, robust systems needed to move quantum computing from theory into practice. The work is intricate and deliberate, building slowly toward a future that she sees as both beautiful and unfamiliar.

 

Michele is also a storyteller. Her science fiction series Steeplechase has received awards at Cannes and other international festivals. It reflects her belief that narrative and science are not separate pursuits, but parallel ways of exploring the unknown. In her teaching, she brings these strands together, guiding students through exercises that combine quantum theory, creative writing, and world-building. One of her courses, supported by MIT’s Center for Art, Science and Technology, invites students to imagine speculative futures grounded in scientific inquiry.

 

On her arm is a tattoo of Alan Turing. It is not ornamental. It is a quiet tribute to a thinker whose life and work continue to shape her own. Turing’s dedication to truth, structure, and the ethical weight of technology is a constant presence in her thinking. She carries it with her, quite literally.

 

The portrait above was made at The Interval at the Long Now Foundation in San Francisco. Michele is seated beside a polished table that reflects her image. Behind her stands the Orrery, a planetary model designed to keep time for ten thousand years. The setting reflects the spirit of her work. She is grounded in the present but always thinking forward, asking how we might live in ways that honor complexity, care, and continuity. She does not speak often about legacy. She speaks about attention, about precision, and about the discipline of staying with difficult questions until they begin to yield something real.

Dedication to the man who broke the Enigma code and did perhaps more than any other single person to bring the Allies in WWII to victory.

 

His groundbreaking thought experiment in the article "Computing machinery and intelligence" (Mind, October 1950) posed the question, "Can Machines Think?" This was before digital computers, his thought experiment utilized spools of tape and a reader that could both code and erase binary data on the tape. For this reason I've used VHS tape and internal parts of a VCR - the head and the eraser, hidden within the folds of the inner brain. The VHS tape is of his favorite film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

 

Alan Turing completed his PhD here at Princeton; his final work involved morphogenesis - figuring out the patterns of growth in living beings. Alluding to this I carved the "a code of life" into the apple; I've also included some other shapes of chemical reactions found in nature, now referred to as Turing Patterns, as he described in "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis."

 

No one is certain, but it is suggested that he took is own life in 1954 by eating an apple poisoned with arsenic.

F-22 Raptors at Hickam AFB, Hawaii - Cyber security is strongest when engineered into our systems versus designing cyber security protections later. That is why we design all aircraft, and their supporting systems, to operate in a cyber contested environment.

 

A U.S. Air Force Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor flies above Royal Australian Air Force Base Tindal, Australia, March 2, 2017. Twelve Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptors and approximately 200 U.S. Air Force Airmen participated in the first Enhanced Air Cooperation, an initiative under the Force Posture Agreement between the U.S. and Australia.

  

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is a fifth-generation, single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). The result of the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program, the aircraft was designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, but also has ground attack, electronic warfare, and signal intelligence capabilities. The prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, built most of the F-22's airframe and weapons systems and conducted final assembly, while Boeing provided the wings, aft fuselage, avionics integration, and training systems.

 

The aircraft was variously designated F-22 and F/A-22 before it formally entered service in December 2005 as the F-22A. Despite its protracted development and various operational issues, USAF officials consider the F-22 a critical component of the service's tactical air power. Its combination of stealth, aerodynamic performance, and situational awareness enable unprecedented air combat capabilities.

 

Service officials had originally planned to buy a total of 750 ATFs. In 2009, the program was cut to 187 operational production aircraft due to high costs, a lack of clear air-to-air missions due to delays in Russian and Chinese fighter programs, a ban on exports, and development of the more versatile F-35. The last F-22 was delivered in 2012.

  

Development

 

Origins

 

In 1981, the U.S. Air Force identified a requirement for an Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) to replace the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon. Code named "Senior Sky", this air-superiority fighter program was influenced by emerging worldwide threats, including new developments in Soviet air defense systems and the proliferation of the Su-27 Flanker- and MiG-29 Fulcrum-class of fighter aircraft. It would take advantage of the new technologies in fighter design on the horizon, including composite materials, lightweight alloys, advanced flight control systems, more powerful propulsion systems, and most importantly, stealth technology. In 1983, the ATF concept development team became the System Program Office (SPO) and managed the program at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The demonstration and validation (Dem/Val) request for proposals (RFP) was issued in September 1985, with requirements placing strong emphasis on stealth and supercruise. Of the seven bidding companies, Lockheed and Northrop were selected on 31 October 1986. Lockheed teamed with Boeing and General Dynamics while Northrop teamed with McDonnell Douglas, and the two contractor teams undertook a 50-month Dem/Val phase, culminating in the flight test of two technology demonstrator prototypes, the YF-22 and the YF-23, respectively.

 

Dem/Val was focused on risk reduction and technology development plans over specific aircraft designs. Contractors made extensive use of analytical and empirical methods, including computational fluid dynamics, wind-tunnel testing, and radar cross-section calculations and pole testing; the Lockheed team would conduct nearly 18,000 hours of wind-tunnel testing. Avionics development was marked by extensive testing and prototyping and supported by ground and flying laboratories. During Dem/Val, the SPO used the results of performance and cost trade studies conducted by contractor teams to adjust ATF requirements and delete ones that were significant weight and cost drivers while having marginal value. The short takeoff and landing (STOL) requirement was relaxed in order to delete thrust-reversers, saving substantial weight. As avionics was a major cost driver, side-looking radars were deleted, and the dedicated infra-red search and track (IRST) system was downgraded from multi-color to single color and then deleted as well. However, space and cooling provisions were retained to allow for future addition of these components. The ejection seat requirement was downgraded from a fresh design to the existing McDonnell Douglas ACES II. Despite efforts by the contractor teams to rein in weight, the takeoff gross weight estimate was increased from 50,000 lb (22,700 kg) to 60,000 lb (27,200 kg), resulting in engine thrust requirement increasing from 30,000 lbf (133 kN) to 35,000 lbf (156 kN) class.

 

Each team produced two prototype air vehicles for Dem/Val, one for each of the two engine options. The YF-22 had its maiden flight on 29 September 1990 and in flight tests achieved up to Mach 1.58 in supercruise. After the Dem/Val flight test of the prototypes, on 23 April 1991, Secretary of the USAF Donald Rice announced the Lockheed team as the winner of the ATF competition. The YF-23 design was considered stealthier and faster, while the YF-22, with its thrust vectoring nozzles, was more maneuverable as well as less expensive and risky. The aviation press speculated that the Lockheed team's design was also more adaptable to the U.S. Navy's Navalized Advanced Tactical Fighter (NATF), but by 1992, the Navy had abandoned NATF.

  

Production and procurement

 

As the program moved to full-scale development, or the Engineering & Manufacturing Development (EMD) stage, the production version had notable differences from the YF-22, despite having a broadly similar shape. The swept-back angle of the leading edge was decreased from 48° to 42°, while the vertical stabilizers were shifted rearward and decreased in area by 20%. To improve pilot visibility, the canopy was moved forward 7 inches (18 cm), and the engine intakes moved rearward 14 inches (36 cm). The shapes of the wing and stabilator trailing edges were refined to improve aerodynamics, strength, and stealth characteristics. Increasing weight during development caused slight reductions in range and maneuver performance.

 

Prime contractor Lockheed Martin Aeronautics manufactured the majority of the airframe and performed final assembly at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia; program partner Boeing Defense, Space & Security provided additional airframe components as well as avionics integration and training systems. The first F-22, an EMD aircraft with tail number 4001, was unveiled at Marietta, Georgia, on 9 April 1997, and first flew on 7 September 1997. Production, with the first lot awarded in September 2000, supported over 1,000 subcontractors and suppliers from 46 states and up to 95,000 jobs, and spanned 15 years at a peak rate of roughly two airplanes per month. In 2006, the F-22 development team won the Collier Trophy, American aviation's most prestigious award. Due to the aircraft's advanced nature, contractors have been targeted by cyberattacks and technology theft.

 

The USAF originally envisioned ordering 750 ATFs at a total program cost of $44.3 billion and procurement cost of $26.2 billion in fiscal year (FY) 1985 dollars, with production beginning in 1994. The 1990 Major Aircraft Review led by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney reduced this to 648 aircraft beginning in 1996. By 1997, funding instability had further cut the total to 339, which was again reduced to 277 by 2003. In 2004, the Department of Defense (DoD) further reduced this to 183 operational aircraft, despite the USAF's preference for 381. A multi-year procurement plan was implemented in 2006 to save $15 billion, with total program cost projected to be $62 billion for 183 F-22s distributed to seven combat squadrons. In 2008, Congress passed a defense spending bill that raised the total orders for production aircraft to 187.

 

The first two F-22s built were EMD aircraft in the Block 1.0 configuration for initial flight testing, while the third was a Block 2.0 aircraft built to represent the internal structure of production airframes and enabled it to test full flight loads. Six more EMD aircraft were built in the Block 10 configuration for development and upgrade testing, with the last two considered essentially production quality jets. Production for operational squadrons consisted of 37 Block 20 training aircraft and 149 Block 30/35 combat aircraft; one of the Block 35 aircraft is dedicated to flight sciences at Edwards Air Force Base.

 

The numerous new technologies in the F-22 resulted in substantial cost overruns and delays. Many capabilities were deferred to post-service upgrades, reducing the initial cost but increasing total program cost. As production wound down in 2011, the total program cost is estimated to be about $67.3 billion, with $32.4 billion spent on Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) and $34.9 billion on procurement and military construction (MILCON) in then year dollars. The incremental cost for an additional F-22 was estimated at about $138 million in 2009.

 

Ban on exports

 

The F-22 cannot be exported under US federal law to protect its stealth technology and other high-tech features. Customers for U.S. fighters are acquiring earlier designs such as the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon or the newer F-35 Lightning II, which contains technology from the F-22 but was designed to be cheaper, more flexible, and available for export. In September 2006, Congress upheld the ban on foreign F-22 sales. Despite the ban, the 2010 defense authorization bill included provisions requiring the DoD to prepare a report on the costs and feasibility for an F-22 export variant, and another report on the effect of F-22 export sales on U.S. aerospace industry.

 

Some Australian politicians and defense commentators proposed that Australia should attempt to purchase F-22s instead of the planned F-35s, citing the F-22's known capabilities and F-35's delays and developmental uncertainties. However, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) determined that the F-22 was unable to perform the F-35's strike and close air support roles. The Japanese government also showed interest in the F-22 for its Replacement-Fighter program. The Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) would reportedly require fewer fighters for its mission if it obtained the F-22, thus reducing engineering and staffing costs. However, in 2009 it was reported that acquiring the F-22 would require increases to the Japanese government's defense budget beyond the historical 1 percent of its GDP. With the end of F-22 production, Japan chose the F-35 in December 2011. Israel also expressed interest, but eventually chose the F-35 because of the F-22's price and unavailability.

 

Production termination

 

Throughout the 2000s, the need for F-22s was debated, due to rising costs and the lack of relevant adversaries. In 2006, Comptroller General of the United States David Walker found that "the DoD has not demonstrated the need" for more investment in the F-22, and further opposition to the program was expressed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon R. England, Senator John McCain, and Chairman of U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services Senator John Warner. The F-22 program lost influential supporters in 2008 after the forced resignations of Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force General T. Michael Moseley.

 

In November 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the F-22 was not relevant in post-Cold War conflicts such as irregular warfare operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in April 2009, under the new Obama Administration, he called for ending production in FY2011, leaving the USAF with 187 production aircraft. In July, General James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated to the Senate Committee on Armed Services his reasons for supporting termination of F-22 production. They included shifting resources to the multirole F-35 to allow proliferation of fifth-generation fighters for three service branches and preserving the F/A-18 production line to maintain the military's electronic warfare (EW) capabilities in the Boeing EA-18G Growler. Issues with the F-22's reliability and availability also raised concerns. After President Obama threatened to veto further production, the Senate voted in July 2009 in favor of ending production and the House subsequently agreed to abide by the 187 production aircraft cap. Gates stated that the decision was taken in light of the F-35's capabilities, and in 2010, he set the F-22 requirement to 187 aircraft by lowering the number of major regional conflict preparations from two to one.

 

In 2010, USAF initiated a study to determine the costs of retaining F-22 tooling for a future Service Life Extension Program (SLEP). A RAND Corporation paper from this study estimated that restarting production and building an additional 75 F-22s would cost $17 billion, resulting in $227 million per aircraft, or $54 million higher than the flyaway cost. Lockheed Martin stated that restarting the production line itself would cost about $200 million. Production tooling and associated documentation were subsequently stored at the Sierra Army Depot, allowing the retained tooling to support the fleet life cycle. There were reports that attempts to retrieve this tooling found empty containers, but a subsequent audit found that the tooling was stored as expected.

 

Russian and Chinese fighter developments have fueled concern, and in 2009, General John Corley, head of Air Combat Command, stated that a fleet of 187 F-22s would be inadequate, but Secretary Gates dismissed General Corley's concern. In 2011, Gates explained that Chinese fifth-generation fighter developments had been accounted for when the number of F-22s was set, and that the U.S. would have a considerable advantage in stealth aircraft in 2025, even with F-35 delays. In December 2011, the 195th and final F-22 was completed out of 8 test EMD and 187 operational aircraft produced; the aircraft was delivered to the USAF on 2 May 2012.

 

In April 2016, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee proposed legislation that would direct the Air Force to conduct a cost study and assessment associated with resuming production of the F-22. Since the production halt directed in 2009 by then Defense Secretary Gates, lawmakers and the Pentagon noted that air warfare systems of Russia and China were catching up to those of the U.S. Lockheed Martin has proposed upgrading the Block 20 training aircraft into combat-coded Block 30/35 versions as a way to increase numbers available for deployment. On 9 June 2017, the Air Force submitted their report to Congress stating they had no plans to restart the F-22 production line due to economic and operational issues; it estimated it would cost approximately $50 billion to procure 194 additional F-22s at a cost of $206–$216 million per aircraft, including approximately $9.9 billion for non-recurring start-up costs and $40.4 billion for aircraft procurement costs.

 

Upgrades

 

The first aircraft with combat-capable Block 3.0 software flew in 2001. Increment 2, the first upgrade program, was implemented in 2005 for Block 20 aircraft onward and enabled the employment of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM). Certification of the improved AN/APG-77(V)1 radar was completed in March 2007, and airframes from production Lot 5 onward are fitted with this radar, which incorporates air-to-ground modes. Increment 3.1 for Block 30 aircraft onward provided improved ground-attack capability through synthetic aperture radar mapping and radio emitter direction finding, electronic attack and Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) integration; testing began in 2009 and the first upgraded aircraft was delivered in 2011. To address oxygen deprivation issues, F-22s were fitted with an automatic backup oxygen system (ABOS) and modified life support system starting in 2012.

 

Increment 3.2 for Block 35 aircraft is a two-part upgrade process; 3.2A focuses on electronic warfare, communications and identification, while 3.2B includes geolocation improvements and a new stores management system to show the correct symbols for the AIM-9X and AIM-120D. To enable two-way communication with other platforms, the F-22 can use the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) as a gateway. The planned Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL) integration was cut due to development delays and lack of proliferation among USAF platforms. The F-22 fleet is planned to start receiving Increment 3.2B as well as a software upgrade for cryptography capabilities and avionics stability in May 2019. A Multifunctional Information Distribution System-Joint (MIDS-J) radio that replaces the current Link-16 receive-only box is expected to be operational by 2020. Subsequent upgrades are also focusing on having an open architecture to enable faster future enhancements.

 

In 2024, funding is projected to begin for the F-22 mid-life upgrade (MLU), which is expected to include new sensors and antennas, hardware refresh, cockpit improvements, and a helmet mounted display and cuing system. Other enhancements being developed include IRST functionality for the AN/AAR-56 Missile Launch Detector (MLD) and more durable stealth coating based on the F-35's.

 

The F-22 was designed for a service life of 8,000 flight hours, with a $350 million "structures retrofit program". Investigations are being made for upgrades to extend their useful lives further. In the long term, the F-22 is expected to be superseded by a sixth-generation jet fighter to be fielded in the 2030s.

  

Design

 

Overview

 

The F-22 Raptor is a fifth-generation fighter that is considered fourth generation in stealth aircraft technology by the USAF.[91] It is the first operational aircraft to combine supercruise, supermaneuverability, stealth, and sensor fusion in a single weapons platform. The F-22 has four empennage surfaces, retractable tricycle landing gear, and clipped delta wings with reverse trailing edge sweep and leading edge extensions running to the upper outboard corner of the inlets. Flight control surfaces include leading-edge flaps, flaperons, ailerons, rudders on the canted vertical stabilizers, and all-moving horizontal tails (stabilators); for speed brake function, the ailerons deflect up, flaperons down, and rudders outwards to increase drag.

 

The aircraft's dual Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 augmented turbofan engines are closely spaced and incorporate pitch-axis thrust vectoring nozzles with a range of ±20 degrees; each engine has maximum thrust in the 35,000 lbf (156 kN) class. The F-22's thrust-to-weight ratio at typical combat weight is nearly at unity in maximum military power and 1.25 in full afterburner. Maximum speed without external stores is approximately Mach 1.8 at military power and greater than Mach 2 with afterburners.

 

The F-22's high cruise speed and operating altitude over prior fighters improve the effectiveness of its sensors and weapon systems, and increase survivability against ground defenses such as surface-to-air missiles. The aircraft is among only a few that can supercruise, or sustain supersonic flight without using fuel-inefficient afterburners; it can intercept targets which subsonic aircraft would lack the speed to pursue and an afterburner-dependent aircraft would lack the fuel to reach. The F-22's thrust and aerodynamics enable regular combat speeds of Mach 1.5 at 50,000 feet (15,000 m). The use of internal weapons bays permits the aircraft to maintain comparatively higher performance over most other combat-configured fighters due to a lack of aerodynamic drag from external stores. The aircraft's structure contains a significant amount of high-strength materials to withstand stress and heat of sustained supersonic flight. Respectively, titanium alloys and composites comprise 39% and 24% of the structural weight.

 

The F-22's aerodynamics, relaxed stability, and powerful thrust-vectoring engines give it excellent maneuverability and energy potential across its flight envelope. The airplane has excellent high alpha (angle of attack) characteristics, capable of flying at trimmed alpha of over 60° while maintaining roll control and performing maneuvers such as the Herbst maneuver (J-turn) and Pugachev's Cobra. The flight control system and full-authority digital engine control (FADEC) make the aircraft highly departure resistant and controllable, thus giving the pilot carefree handling.

  

Stealth

 

The F-22 was designed to be highly difficult to detect and track by radar. Measures to reduce radar cross-section (RCS) include airframe shaping such as alignment of edges, fixed-geometry serpentine inlets and curved vanes that prevent line-of-sight of the engine faces and turbines from any exterior view, use of radar-absorbent material (RAM), and attention to detail such as hinges and pilot helmets that could provide a radar return. The F-22 was also designed to have decreased radio emissions, infrared signature and acoustic signature as well as reduced visibility to the naked eye. The aircraft's flat thrust-vectoring nozzles reduce infrared emissions of the exhaust plume to mitigate the threat of infrared homing ("heat seeking") surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles. Additional measures to reduce the infrared signature include special topcoat and active cooling of leading edges to manage the heat buildup from supersonic flight.

 

Compared to previous stealth designs like the F-117, the F-22 is less reliant on RAM, which are maintenance-intensive and susceptible to adverse weather conditions. Unlike the B-2, which requires climate-controlled hangars, the F-22 can undergo repairs on the flight line or in a normal hangar. The F-22 has a Signature Assessment System which delivers warnings when the radar signature is degraded and necessitates repair. While the F-22's exact RCS is classified, in 2009 Lockheed Martin released information indicating that from certain angles the aircraft has an RCS of 0.0001 m² or −40 dBsm – equivalent to the radar reflection of a "steel marble". Effectively maintaining the stealth features can decrease the F-22's mission capable rate to 62–70%.

 

The effectiveness of the stealth characteristics is difficult to gauge. The RCS value is a restrictive measurement of the aircraft's frontal or side area from the perspective of a static radar. When an aircraft maneuvers it exposes a completely different set of angles and surface area, potentially increasing radar observability. Furthermore, the F-22's stealth contouring and radar absorbent materials are chiefly effective against high-frequency radars, usually found on other aircraft. The effects of Rayleigh scattering and resonance mean that low-frequency radars such as weather radars and early-warning radars are more likely to detect the F-22 due to its physical size. However, such radars are also conspicuous, susceptible to clutter, and have low precision. Additionally, while faint or fleeting radar contacts make defenders aware that a stealth aircraft is present, reliably vectoring interception to attack the aircraft is much more challenging. According to the USAF an F-22 surprised an Iranian F-4 Phantom II that was attempting to intercept an American UAV, despite Iran's assertion of having military VHF radar coverage over the Persian Gulf.

Enigma machine rotors.

  

Unlock the code

 

My Travel Blog:__WWW.NEILSRTW.BLOGSPOT.COM

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

History

United States

Name: USS Yorktown (CV-5)

Namesake: The Battle of Yorktown

Ordered: 3 August 1933

Builder: Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co.

Laid down: 21 May 1934

Launched: 4 April 1936

Sponsored by: Eleanor Roosevelt

Commissioned: 30 September 1937

In service: 1937

Out of service: 1942

Struck: 2 October 1942

Honors and

awards:

 

3 battle stars American Defense Service Medal

("A" device)/American Campaign Medal / Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (3 stars) / World War II Victory Medal

 

Fate: Sunk 7 June 1942 in the Battle of Midway, 141 men killed.

General characteristics

Class & type: Yorktown-class aircraft carrier

Type: Aircraft carrier

Displacement:

 

As built:

19,800 long tons (20,100 t) light

25,500 long tons (25,900 t) full load

 

Length:

 

As built: 770 ft (230 m) (waterline @ design draft)

824 ft 9 in (251.38 m) overall

 

Beam:

 

As built: 83 ft 3 in (25.37 m) (waterline)

109 ft 6 in (33.38 m) (overall)

 

Draft: 25 ft 11.5 in (7.912 m) (as built)

Propulsion:

 

9 × Babcock & Wilcox boilers,

4 × Parsons geared turbines,

120,000 shp (89 MW)

4 × screws

 

Speed: 32.5 knots (37.4 mph; 60.2 km/h)

Range: 12,500 nautical miles (23,200 km; 14,400 mi) at 15 knots (17 mph; 28 km/h)

Complement: 2,217 officers and men (1941)

Sensors and

processing systems: CXAM radar from 1940[1]

Armament:

 

As built:

8 × single 5 in/38 cal guns

4 × quad 1.1 in/75 cal guns

24 × .50 caliber machine guns

From February 1942:

8 × 5 in/38 cal

4 × Quad 1.1 in/75 cal

24 20mm Oerlikon guns

24 × .50 caliber machine guns

 

Armor:

 

As built:

2.5-4 inch belt

60 lb protective decks

4 inch bulkheads

4 inch side and 3 inch top round conning tower

4 inch side over steering gear

 

Aircraft carried:

 

As built:

90 aircraft

3 × elevators

2 × flight deck hydraulic catapults

1 × hangar deck hydraulic catapults

 

USS Yorktown (CV-5) was an aircraft carrier commissioned in the United States Navy from 1937 until she was sunk at the Battle of Midway in June 1942. She was named after the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 and the lead ship of the Yorktown class which was designed after lessons learned from operations with the large converted battlecruiser Lexington class and the smaller purpose-built USS Ranger (CV-4). She represented the epitome of U.S. pre-war carrier design.

  

Early career

Eleanor Roosevelt christens the Yorktown (April 4, 1936)

Yorktown ship's insignia

 

Yorktown was laid down on 21 May 1934 at Newport News, Virginia, by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co.; launched on 4 April 1936; sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt; and commissioned at the Naval Operating Base (NOB), Norfolk, Virginia, on 30 September 1937, Captain Ernest D. McWhorter in command.

 

After fitting out, the aircraft carrier trained in Hampton Roads, Virginia and in the southern drill grounds off the Virginia capes into January 1938, conducting carrier qualifications for her newly embarked air group.

 

Yorktown sailed for the Caribbean on 8 January 1938 and arrived at Culebra, Puerto Rico, on 13 January. Over the ensuing month, the carrier conducted her shakedown, touching at Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands; Gonaïves, Haiti; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Cristóbal, Panama Canal Zone. Departing Colon Bay, Cristobal, on 1 March, Yorktown sailed for Hampton Roads, arrived on 6 March, and shifted to the Norfolk Navy Yard the next day for post-shakedown availability.

 

After undergoing repairs through the early autumn of 1938, Yorktown shifted from the navy yard to NOB Norfolk on 17 October and soon headed for the Southern Drill Grounds for training.

 

Yorktown operated off the eastern seaboard, ranging from Chesapeake Bay to Guantanamo Bay, into 1939. As flagship for Carrier Division 2, she participated in her first war game—Fleet Problem XX—along with her sister-ship USS Enterprise (CV-6) in February 1939. The scenario for the exercise called for one fleet to control the sea lanes in the Caribbean against the incursion of a foreign European power while maintaining sufficient naval strength to protect vital American interests in the Pacific. The maneuvers were witnessed, in part, by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, embarked in the heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA-30).

 

The critique of the operation revealed that carrier operations—a part of the scenarios for the annual exercises since the entry of USS Langley (CV-1) into the war games in 1925—had achieved a new peak of efficiency. Despite the inexperience of Yorktown and Enterprise—comparative newcomers to the Fleet—both carriers made significant contributions to the success of the problem. The planners had studied the employment of carriers and their embarked air groups in connection with convoy escort, antisubmarine defense, and various attack measures against surface ships and shore installations. In short, they worked to develop the tactics that would be used when war actually came.[2]

Pacific Fleet

 

Following Fleet Problem XX, Yorktown returned briefly to Hampton Roads before sailing for the Pacific on 20 April 1939. Transiting the Panama Canal a week later, Yorktown soon commenced a regular routine of operations with the Pacific Fleet. The Second World War started on 1 September 1939, but the USA was not yet involved. Operating out of San Diego, California into 1940, the carrier participated in Fleet Problem XXI that April. Yorktown was one of six ships to receive the new RCA CXAM radar in 1940.[1]

 

Fleet Problem XXI—a two-part exercise—included some of the operations that would characterize future warfare in the Pacific. The first part of the exercise was devoted to training in making plans and estimates; in screening and scouting; in coordination of combatant units; and in employing fleet and standard dispositions. The second phase included training in convoy protection, the seizure of advanced bases, and, ultimately, the decisive engagement between the opposing fleets. The last pre-war exercise of its type, Fleet Problem XXI contained two exercises (comparatively minor at the time) where air operations played a major role. Fleet Joint Air Exercise 114A prophetically pointed out the need to coordinate Army and Navy defense plans for the Hawaiian Islands, and Fleet Exercise 114 proved that aircraft could be used for high altitude tracking of surface forces—a significant role for planes that would be fully realized in the war to come.

 

With the retention of the Fleet in Hawaiian waters after the conclusion of Fleet Problem XXI, Yorktown operated in the Pacific off the west coast of the United States and in Hawaiian waters until the following spring, when the success of German U-boats preying upon British shipping in the Atlantic required a shift of American naval strength. Thus, to reinforce the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, the Navy transferred a substantial force from the Pacific including Yorktown, Battleship Division Three (the New Mexico-class battleships), three light cruisers, and 12 accompanying destroyers.[2]

Neutrality patrol

Yorktown prepares to get under way (June 1940)

Yorktown is refueled by the USS Brazos (AO-4) mid-Pacific (July 1940)

 

Yorktown departed Pearl Harbor on 20 April 1941 in company with destroyers Warrington, Somers, and Jouett; headed southeast, transited the Panama Canal on the night of 6–7 May, and arrived at Bermuda on 12 May. From that time until the United States entered the war, Yorktown conducted four patrols in the Atlantic, ranging from Newfoundland to Bermuda and logging 17,642 miles (28,392 km) steamed while enforcing American neutrality.

 

Although Adolf Hitler had forbidden his submarines to attack American ships, the men who manned the American naval vessels were not aware of this policy and operated on a wartime footing in the Atlantic.

 

On 28 October, while Yorktown, the battleship USS New Mexico (BB-40), and other American warships were screening a convoy, a destroyer picked up a submarine contact and dropped depth charges while the convoy itself made an emergency starboard turn, the first of the convoy's three emergency changes of course. Late that afternoon, engine repairs to one of the ships in the convoy, Empire Pintail, reduced the convoy's speed to 11 knots (13 mph; 20 km/h).

 

During the night, the American ships intercepted strong German radio signals, indicating submarines probably in the vicinity reporting the group. Rear Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, commanding the escort force, sent a destroyer to sweep astern of the convoy to destroy the U-boat or at least to drive him under.

 

The next day, while cruiser scout planes patrolled overhead, Yorktown and USS Savannah (CL-42) fueled their escorting destroyers, finishing the task as dusk fell. On 30 October, Yorktown was preparing to fuel three destroyers when other escorts made sound contacts. The convoy subsequently made 10 emergency turns while the destroyers Morris and Anderson dropped depth charges, with Hughes assisted in developing the contact. Anderson later made two more depth charge attacks, noticing "considerable oil with slick spreading but no wreckage".

 

The short-of-war period was becoming more like the real thing as each day went on. Elsewhere on 30 October, U-552 torpedoed the destroyer Reuben James, sinking her with a heavy loss of life, the first loss of an American warship in World War II. After another Neutrality Patrol stint in November, Yorktown put into Norfolk on 2 December.[2]

World War II

 

Yorktown in February 1942.

 

On the early morning of December 7, 1941, Japanese warplanes attacked the U.S. base at Pearl Harbor without warning, killing 2,403 Americans, destroying or damaging 247 U.S. aircraft, and damaging or sinking 16 U.S. warships. With the battle line crippled, the undamaged American carriers assumed great importance. There were, on 7 December, only three in the Pacific: Enterprise, Lexington, and Saratoga. Ranger, Wasp, and the recently commissioned Hornet remained in the Atlantic. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor resulted in massive outrage across the United States and led the country's formal entry into World War II the next day. Yorktown departed Norfolk on 16 December 1941 for the Pacific, her secondary gun galleries studded with new Oerlikon 20 mm guns. She reached San Diego 30 December 1941 and soon became flagship for Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher's newly formed Task Force 17 (TF 17).

 

The carrier's first mission in her new theater was to escort a convoy carrying Marine reinforcements to American Samoa. Departing San Diego on 6 January 1942, Yorktown and her consorts covered the movement of marines to Pago Pago in Tutuila to augment the garrison already there.

 

Having safely covered that troop movement, Yorktown, in company with sister ship Enterprise, departed Samoan waters on 25 January. Six days later, Task Force 8 (built around Enterprise), and TF 17 (around Yorktown) parted company. The former headed for the Marshall Islands, the latter for the Gilberts, each to take part in some of the first American offensives of the war, the Marshalls-Gilberts raids.

 

Yorktown was being screened by two cruisers, Louisville and St. Louis and four destroyers, seemingly provided by Destroyer Squadron 2. At 05:17, Yorktown launched 11 Douglas TBD-1 Devastators and 17 Douglas SBD-3 Dauntlesses, under the command of CMDR Curtis W. Smiley. Those planes hit what Japanese shore installations and shipping they could find at Jaluit, but severe thunderstorms hampered the mission, and seven planes were lost. Other Yorktown planes attacked Japanese installations and ships at Makin and Mili Atolls.

 

The attack on the Gilberts by Task Force 17 had apparently been a complete surprise since the American force encountered no enemy surface ships. A single four-engined Kawanishi H6K "Mavis" patrol flying boat attempted to attack American destroyers sent astern in hope of recovering the crews of planes overdue from the Jaluit mission. Antiaircraft fire from the destroyers drove off the intruder before he could cause any damage.

 

Later, another "Mavis"—or possibly the same one—came out of low clouds 15,000 yards (14,000 m) distant from Yorktown. The carrier withheld her antiaircraft fire in order not to interfere with the combat air patrol (CAP) fighters. Presently, the "Mavis", pursued by two F4F Wildcats, disappeared behind a cloud. Within five minutes, the enemy patrol plane fell out of the clouds and crashed in the water.

 

Although TF 17 was slated to make a second attack on Jaluit, it was canceled because of heavy rainstorms and the approach of darkness. Therefore, the Yorktown force retired from the area.

 

Admiral Chester Nimitz later called the Marshalls-Gilberts raids "well conceived, well planned, and brilliantly executed". The results obtained by Task Forces 8 and 17 were noteworthy, Nimitz continued in his subsequent report, because the task forces had been obliged to make their attacks somewhat blindly, due to lack of hard intelligence data on the Japanese-mandated islands.

 

Yorktown subsequently put in at Pearl Harbor for replenishment before she put to sea on 14 February, bound for the Coral Sea. On 6 March, she rendezvoused with TF 11—formed around Lexington and under the command of Vice Admiral Wilson Brown—and headed towards Rabaul and Gasmata to attack Japanese shipping there in an effort to check the Japanese advance and to cover the landing of Allied troops at Nouméa, New Caledonia. However, as the two carriers—screened by a powerful force of eight heavy cruisers (including the Australian warships HMAS Australia and HMAS Canberra) and 14 destroyers—steamed toward New Guinea, the Japanese continued their advance toward Australia with a landing on 7 March at the Huon Gulf, in the Salamaua-Lae area on the eastern end of New Guinea.

 

Word of the Japanese operation prompted Admiral Brown to change the objective of TF 11's strike from Rabaul to the Salamaua-Lae sector. On the morning of 10 March 1942, American carriers launched aircraft from the Gulf of Papua. Lexington flew off her air group commencing at 07:49 and, 21 minutes later, Yorktown followed suit. While the choice of the gulf as the launch point for the strike meant the planes would have to fly some 125 miles (200 km) across the Owen Stanley mountains—a range not known for the best flying conditions—that approach provided security for the task force and ensured surprise.

 

In the attacks that followed, Lexington's SBDs from Scouting Squadron 2 (VS-2) commenced dive-bombing Japanese ships at Lae at 0922. The carrier's torpedo and bomber squadrons (VT-2 and VB-2) attacked shipping at Salamaua at 09:38. Her fighters (VF-2) split up into four-plane attack groups: one strafed Lae and the other, Salamaua. Yorktown's planes followed on the heels of those from "Lady Lex". VB-5 and VT-5 attacked Japanese ships in the Salamaua area at 0950, while VS-5 went after auxiliaries moored close in shore at Lae. The fighters of VF-42 flew CAP over Salamaua until they determined there was no air opposition, then strafed surface objectives and small boats in the harbor.

 

After carrying out their missions, the American planes returned to their carriers, and 103 planes of the 104 launched were back safely on board by noon. One SBD-2 had been downed by Japanese antiaircraft fire. The raid on Salamaua and Lae was the first attack by many pilots of both carriers; and, while the resultant torpedo and bombing accuracy was inferior to that achieved in later actions, the operation gave the fliers invaluable experience which enabled them to do so well in the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway.

 

Task Force 11 retired at 20 knots (23 mph; 37 km/h) on a southeasterly course until dark, when the ships steered eastward at 15 knots (17 mph; 28 km/h) and made rendezvous with Task Group 11.7 (TG11.7), three heavy cruisers (USS Chicago, HMAS Australia, and HMAS Canberra) and four destroyers under the Australian Rear Admiral John Crace, which provided cover for the carriers on their approach to New Guinea.

 

Yorktown resumed her patrols in the Coral Sea area, remaining at sea into April, out of reach of Japanese land-based aircraft and ready to carry out offensive operations whenever the opportunity presented itself. After the Lae-Salamaua raid, the situation in the South Pacific seemed temporarily stabilized, and Yorktown and her consorts in TF 17 put into the undeveloped harbor at Tongatabu, in the Tonga Islands, for needed upkeep, having been at sea continuously since departing from Pearl Harbor on 14 February.

 

However, the enemy was soon on the move. To Admiral Nimitz, there seemed to be "excellent indications that the Japanese intended to make a seaborne attack on Port Moresby the first week in May". Yorktown accordingly departed Tongatapu on 27 April 1942, bound once more for the Coral Sea. TF 11—now commanded by Rear Admiral Aubrey W. Fitch, who had relieved Brown in Lexington—departed Pearl Harbor to join Fletcher's TF 17 and arrived in the vicinity of Yorktown's group, southwest of the New Hebrides Islands, on 1 May.[2]

 

Battle of the Coral Sea

 

At 15:17 the next afternoon, two Dauntlesses from VS-5 sighted a Japanese submarine, running on the surface. Three Devastators took off from Yorktown, sped to the scene, and carried out an attack that succeeded only in driving the submarine under.

 

On the morning of 3 May, TF 11 and TF 17 were some 100 miles (161 km) apart, engaged in fueling operations. Shortly before midnight, Fletcher received word from Australian-based aircraft that Japanese transports were disembarking troops and equipment at Tulagi in the Solomon Islands. Arriving soon after the Australians had evacuated the place, the Japanese landed to commence construction of a seaplane base there to support their southward thrust.

 

Yorktown accordingly set course northward at 27 knots (31 mph; 50 km/h). By daybreak on 4 May, she was within striking distance of the newly established Japanese beachhead and launched her first strike at 0701-18 F4F-3's of VF-42, 12 TBD's of VT-5, and 28 SBD's from VS and BY-5. Yorktown's air group made three consecutive attacks on enemy ships and shore installations at Tulagi and Gavutu on the south coast of Florida Island in the Solomons. Expending 22 torpedoes and 76 1,000 pounds (450 kg) bombs in the three attacks, Yorktown's planes sank the destroyer Kikuzuki, three minesweepers and four barges. In addition, Air Group 5 destroyed five enemy seaplanes, all at the cost of two F4Fs lost (the pilots were recovered) and one TBD (whose crew was lost).

 

Meanwhile, that same day, TF 44, a cruiser-destroyer force under Rear Admiral Crace (RN), joined Lexington's TF 11, thus completing the composition of the Allied force on the eve of the crucial Battle of the Coral Sea.

 

Elsewhere, to the northward, eleven troop-laden transports—escorted by destroyers and covered by the light carrier Shōhō, four heavy cruisers, and a destroyer—steamed toward Port Moresby. In addition, another Japanese task force—formed around the two Pearl Harbor veterans, carriers Shōkaku and Zuikaku, and screened by two heavy cruisers and six destroyers—provided additional air cover.

 

On the morning of 6 May, Fletcher gathered all Allied forces under his tactical command as TF 17. At daybreak on 7 May, he dispatched Crace, with the cruisers and destroyers under his command, toward the Louisiade archipelago to intercept any enemy attempt to move toward Port Moresby.

 

While Fletcher moved north with his two flattops and their screens in search of the enemy, Japanese search planes located the oiler Neosho and her escort, Sims and misidentified the former as a carrier. Two waves of Japanese planes—first high level bombers and then dive bombers—attacked the two ships. Sims, her antiaircraft battery crippled by gun failures, took three direct hits and sank quickly with a heavy loss of life. Neosho was more fortunate in that, even after seven direct hits and eight near-misses, she remained afloat until, on the 11th, her survivors were picked up by Henley and her hulk sunk by the rescuing destroyer.

 

Neosho and Sims had performed a valuable service, drawing off the planes that might otherwise have hit Fletcher's carriers. Meanwhile, Yorktown and Lexington's planes found Shōhō and sank her. One of Lexington's pilots reported this victory with the radio message, "Scratch one flattop".

 

That afternoon, Shōkaku and Zuikaku—still not located by Fletcher's forces—launched 27 bombers and torpedo planes to search for the American ships. Their flight proved uneventful until they ran into fighters from Yorktown and Lexington, who proceeded to down nine enemy planes in the ensuing dogfight.

 

Near twilight, three Japanese planes incredibly mistook Yorktown for their own carrier and attempted to land. The ship's gunfire, though, drove them off; and the enemy planes crossed Yorktown's bow and turned away out of range. Twenty minutes later, when three more enemy pilots made the mistake of trying to get into Yorktown's landing circle, the carrier's gunners splashed one of the trio.

 

However, the battle was far from over. The next morning, 8 May, a Lexington search plane spotted Admiral Takeo Takagi's carrier striking force—including Zuikaku and Shōkaku. Yorktown planes scored two bomb hits on Shōkaku, damaging her flight deck and preventing her from launching aircraft; in addition, the bombs set off explosions in gasoline storage tanks and destroyed an engine repair workshop. Lexington's Dauntlesses added another hit. Between the two American air groups, the hits killed 108 Japanese sailors and wounded 40 more.

 

While the American planes were occupying the Japanese flattops, however, Yorktown and Lexington—alerted by an intercepted message which indicated that the Japanese knew of their whereabouts—were preparing to fight off a retaliatory strike, which came shortly after 11:00.

 

American CAP Wildcats downed 17 planes, though some managed to slip through the defenses. "Kates" launched torpedoes from both sides of Lexington's bows. Two "fish" tore into "Lady Lex" on the port side; "Val" dive bombers added to the destruction with three bomb hits. Lexington developed a list, with three partially flooded engineering spaces. Several fires raged below decks, and the carrier's elevators were put out of commission.

 

Meanwhile, Yorktown was having problems of her own. Maneuvered by Captain Elliott Buckmaster, her commanding officer, the carrier dodged eight torpedoes. Attacked then by "Vals", the ship managed to evade all but one bomb. That one, however, penetrated the flight deck and exploded below decks, killing or seriously injuring 66 men.

 

Lexington's damage control parties brought the fires under control, and the ship was still able to continue flight operations despite the damage. The air battle itself ended shortly before noon on the 8th; within an hour, the carrier was on an even keel, although slightly down by the bow. However, an explosion caused by the ignition of gasoline vapors later caused a fire and tore apart the inside. Lexington was abandoned at 17:07, and later sunk by the destroyer Phelps.

 

The Japanese had won a tactical victory, inflicting comparatively heavier losses on the Allied force, but the Allies, in stemming the tide of Japan's conquests in the South and Southwest Pacific, had achieved a strategic victory. Yorktown had not achieved her part in the victory without cost, and had suffered enough damage to cause experts to estimate that at least three months in a yard would be required to put her back in fighting trim. However, there was little time for repairs, because Allied intelligence—most notably the cryptographic unit at Pearl Harbor—had gained enough information from decoded Japanese naval messages to estimate that the Japanese were on the threshold of a major operation aimed at the northwestern tip of the Hawaiian chain—two islets in a low coral atoll known as Midway.[2]

 

Battle of Midway

 

Yorktown on the morning of 4 June 1942.

 

Armed with this intelligence Admiral Nimitz began methodically planning Midway's defense, rushing all possible reinforcement in the way of men, planes and guns to Midway. In addition, he began gathering his comparatively meager naval forces to meet the enemy at sea. As part of those preparations, he recalled TF 16, Enterprise and Hornet, to Pearl Harbor for a quick replenishment.

 

Yorktown, too, received orders to return to Hawaii; she arrived at Pearl Harbor on 27 May, entering dry dock the following day. The damage the ship had sustained after Coral Sea was considerable, and led to the Navy Yard inspectors estimating that she would need at least two weeks of repairs. However, Admiral Nimitz ordered that she be made ready to sail alongside TF 16. Yard workers there, laboring around the clock, made enough repairs to enable the ship to put to sea again in 48 hours. The repairs were made in such a short time that the Japanese Naval Commanders thought they had mistaken Yorktown for another vessel as they thought she had been sunk after the previous battle, yet she had returned. Her air group was augmented by planes and crews from Saratoga which was then headed for Pearl Harbor after her refit on the West Coast. Yorktown sailed as the core of TF 17 on 30 May.

 

Northeast of Midway, Yorktown, flying Rear Admiral Fletcher's flag, rendezvoused with TF 16 under Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spruance and maintained a position 10 miles (16 km) to the northward of him.

 

Patrols, both from Midway and the carriers, were flown during early June. At dawn on 4 June Yorktown launched a 10-plane group of Dauntlesses from VB-5 which searched a northern semicircle for a distance of 100 miles (160 km) out but found nothing.

 

Meanwhile, PBYs flying from Midway had sighted the approaching Japanese and broadcast the alarm for the American forces defending the key atoll. Admiral Fletcher, in tactical command, ordered Admiral Spruance's TF 16 to locate and strike the enemy carrier force.

 

Yorktown's search group returned at 0830, landing soon after the last of the six-plane CAP had left the deck. When the last of the Dauntlesses were recovered, the deck was hastily respotted for the launch of the ship's attack group: 17 Dauntlesses from VB-3, 12 Devastators from VT-3, and six Wildcats from "Fighting Three". Enterprise and Hornet, meanwhile, launched their attack groups.

 

The torpedo planes from the three American carriers located the Japanese striking force, but met disaster. Of the 41 planes from VT-8, VT-6, and VT-3, only six returned to Enterprise and Yorktown; none made it back to Hornet.

 

As a reaction to the torpedo attack the Japanese CAP had broken off their high-altitude cover for their carriers and had concentrated on the Devastators, flying "on the deck", allowing Dauntlesses from Yorktown and Enterprise to arrive unopposed.[2]

 

Virtually unopposed, Yorktown's dive-bombers attacked Sōryū, making three lethal hits with 1,000 pounds (450 kg) bombs and setting her on fire.[3] Enterprise's planes, meanwhile, hit Akagi and Kaga, effectively destroying them. The bombs from the Dauntlesses caught all of the Japanese carriers in the midst of refueling and rearming operations, causing devastating fires and explosions.

 

Three of the four Japanese carriers had been destroyed. The fourth, Hiryū, separated from her sisters, launched a striking force of 18 "Vals" and soon located Yorktown.

Smoke pours from Yorktown after being hit in the boilers by Japanese dive bombers at Midway.

 

As soon as the attackers had been picked up on Yorktown's radar at about 1329, she discontinued fueling her CAP fighters on deck and swiftly cleared for action. Her returning dive bombers were moved from the landing circle to open the area for antiaircraft fire. The Dauntlesses were ordered aloft to form a CAP. An auxiliary 800 US gallons (3,000 l) gasoline tank was pushed over the carrier's fantail, eliminating one fire hazard. The crew drained fuel lines and closed and secured all compartments.[2]

 

All of Yorktown's fighters were vectored out to intercept the oncoming Japanese aircraft, and did so some 15 to 20 miles (24 to 32 km) out. The Wildcats attacked vigorously, breaking up what appeared to be an organized attack by some 18 "Vals" and 6 "Zeroes".[4] "Planes were flying in every direction", wrote Captain Buckmaster after the action, "and many were falling in flames."[2] The leader of the "Vals", Lieutenant Michio Kobayashi, was probably shot down by the VF-3's commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander John S. Thach. Lieutenant William W. Barnes also pressed home the first attack, possibly taking out the lead bomber and damaging at least two others.[citation needed]

 

Despite an intensive barrage and evasive maneuvering, three "Vals" scored hits. Two of them were shot down soon after releasing their bomb loads; the third went out of control just as his bomb left the rack. It tumbled in flight and hit just abaft the number two elevator on the starboard side, exploding on contact and blasting a hole about 10 feet (3 m) square in the flight deck. Splinters from the exploding bomb killed most of the crews of the two 1.1-inch (28 mm) gun mounts aft of the island and on the flight deck below. Fragments piercing the flight deck hit three planes on the hangar deck, starting fires. One of the aircraft, a Yorktown Dauntless, was fully fueled and carrying a 1,000 pounds (450 kg) bomb. Prompt action by LT A. C. Emerson, the hangar deck officer, prevented a serious fire by activating the sprinkler system and quickly extinguishing the fire.

 

The second bomb to hit the ship came from the port side, pierced the flight deck, and exploded in the lower part of the funnel. It ruptured the uptakes for three boilers, disabled two boilers, and extinguished the fires in five boilers. Smoke and gases began filling the firerooms of six boilers. The men at number one boiler remained at their post and kept it alight, maintaining enough steam pressure to allow the auxiliary steam systems to function.

 

A third bomb hit the carrier from the starboard side, pierced the side of number one elevator and exploded on the fourth deck, starting a persistent fire in the rag storage space, adjacent to the forward gasoline stowage and the magazines. The prior precaution of smothering the gasoline system with carbon dioxide undoubtedly prevented the gasoline from igniting.

 

While the ship recovered from the damage inflicted by the dive-bombing attack, her speed dropped to 6 knots (7 mph; 11 km/h); and then at 14:40, about 20 minutes after the bomb hit that had shut down most of the boilers, Yorktown slowed to a stop, dead in the water.

 

At about 15:40, Yorktown prepared to get steaming again; and, at 15:50, the engine room force reported that they were ready to make 20 knots (23 mph; 37 km/h) or better.

 

Simultaneously, with the fires controlled sufficiently to warrant the resumption of fueling, Yorktown began refueling the fighters then on deck; just then the ship's radar picked up an incoming air group at a distance of 33 miles (53 km). While the ship prepared for battle, again smothering gasoline systems and stopping the fueling of the planes on her flight deck, she vectored four of the six fighters of the CAP in the air to intercept the raiders. Of the 10 fighters on board, eight had as little as 23 US gallons (87 l) of fuel in their tanks. They were launched as the remaining pair of fighters of the CAP headed out to intercept the Japanese planes.

Yorktown is hit on the port side, amidships, by a Japanese Type 91 aerial torpedo during the mid-afternoon attack by planes from the carrier Hiryu.

 

At 16:00, maneuvering Yorktown churned forward, making 20 knots (23 mph; 37 km/h). The fighters she had launched and vectored out to intercept had meanwhile made contact with the enemy. Yorktown received reports that the planes were "Kates". The Wildcats shot down at least three, but the rest began their approach while the carrier and her escorts mounted a heavy antiaircraft barrage.

 

Yorktown maneuvered radically, avoiding at least two torpedoes before another two struck the port side within minutes of each other, the first at 16:20. The carrier had been mortally wounded; she lost power and went dead in the water with a jammed rudder and an increasing list to port.

 

As the ship's list progressed, Commander C. E. Aldrich, the damage control officer, reported from central station that, without power, controlling the flooding looked impossible. The engineering officer, LCDR. J. F. Delaney, soon reported that all boiler fires were out, that all power was lost and that it was impossible to correct the list. Buckmaster ordered Aldrich, Delaney, and their men to secure and lay up on deck to put on life jackets.

 

The list, meanwhile, continued to increase. When it reached 26 degrees, Buckmaster and Aldrich agreed that capsizing was imminent. "In order to save as many of the ship's company as possible", the captain wrote later, he "ordered the ship to be abandoned".

 

Over the next few minutes the crew lowered the wounded into life rafts and struck out for the nearby destroyers and cruisers to be picked up by their boats, abandoning ship in good order. After the evacuation of all wounded, the executive officer, Commander I. D. Wiltsie, left the ship down a line on the starboard side. Buckmaster, meanwhile, toured the ship one last time, to see if any men remained. After finding no "live personnel", Buckmaster lowered himself into the water by means of a line over the stern, by which time water was lapping the port side of the hangar deck.[2]

Salvage and sinking

 

After being picked up by the destroyer USS Hammann, Buckmaster transferred to the cruiser Astoria and reported to Rear Admiral Fletcher, who had shifted his flag to the heavy cruiser after the first dive-bombing attack. The two men agreed that a salvage party should attempt to save the ship, since she had stubbornly remained afloat despite the heavy list and imminent danger of capsizing.

 

While efforts to save Yorktown had been proceeding apace, her planes were still in action, joining those from Enterprise in striking the last Japanese carrier—Hiryū—late that afternoon. Taking four direct hits, the Japanese carrier was soon helpless. She was abandoned by her crew and left to drift out of control.

 

Yorktown, as it turned out, floated throughout the night. Two men were still alive on board her; one attracted attention by firing a machine gun, heard by the sole attending destroyer, Hughes. The escort picked up the men, one of whom later died.

 

Meanwhile, Buckmaster had selected 29 officers and 141 men to return to the ship in an attempt to save her. Five destroyers formed an antisubmarine screen while the salvage party boarded the listing carrier, the fire in the rag storage still smouldering on the morning of the 6th. The Fleet Tug USS Vireo, summoned from Pearl and Hermes Reef, soon commenced towing the ship, although progress was painfully slow.

 

Yorktown's repair party went on board with a carefully predetermined plan of action to be carried out by men from each department—damage control, gunnery air engineering, navigation, communication, supply and medical. To assist in the work, Lt. Cdr. Arnold E. True brought his ship, USS Hammann, alongside to starboard, aft, furnishing pumps and electric power.

 

By mid-afternoon, it looked as if the gamble to save the ship was paying off. The process of reducing topside weight was proceeding well—one 5-inch (127 mm) gun had been dropped over the side, and a second was ready to be cast loose; planes had been pushed over the side; the submersible pumps (powered by electricity provided by Hammann) had pumped a lot of water out of the engineering spaces. The efforts of the salvage crew had reduced the list about two degrees.

USS Hammann (DD-412) sinking with stern high, after being torpedoed by Japanese submarine I-168

 

Unknown to Yorktown and the six nearby destroyers, Japanese submarine I-168 had achieved a favorable firing position. Remarkably—but perhaps understandably due to the debris and wreckage in the water in the vicinity—none of the destroyers picked up the approaching I-boat. At 15:36 lookouts spotted a salvo of four torpedoes approaching the ship from the starboard beam.

 

Hammann went to general quarters, a 20 millimeter gun going into action in an attempt to explode the torpedoes in the water, her screws churning the water beneath her fantail as she tried to get underway. One torpedo hit Hammann directly amidships and broke her back. The destroyer jackknifed and went down rapidly.

 

Two torpedoes struck Yorktown just below the turn of the bilge at the after end of the island structure. The fourth torpedo passed just astern of the carrier.

 

About a minute after Hammann sank there was an underwater explosion, possibly caused by the destroyer's depth charges going off. The blast killed many of Hammann's and a few of Yorktown's men who had been thrown into the water. The concussion battered the already-damaged carrier's hull and caused tremendous shocks that carried away Yorktown's auxiliary generator, sent numerous fixtures from the hangar deck overhead crashing to the deck below, sheared rivets in the starboard leg of the foremast, and threw men in every direction, causing broken bones and several minor injuries.

Yorktown capsizing to port and sinking, 7 June 1942

 

All destroyers immediately commenced searches for the enemy submarine (which escaped) and commenced rescuing men from Hammann and Yorktown. Captain Buckmaster decided to postpone further attempts at salvage until the following day.

 

Vireo cut the tow and doubled back to Yorktown to pick up survivors, taking on board many men of the salvage crew while picking up men from the water. The little ship endured a terrific pounding from the larger ship but nevertheless stayed alongside to carry out her rescue mission. Later, while on board the tug, Buckmaster conducted a burial service, and two officers and an enlisted man from Hammann were buried at sea.

 

The second attempt at salvage was never made. Throughout the night of the 6th and into the morning of the 7th, Yorktown remained stubbornly afloat. By 05:30 on 7 June, however, the men in the ships nearby noted that the carrier's list was rapidly increasing to port. At 07:01, the ship turned over onto her port side, rolled upside-down, and sank, stern first, in 3,000 fathoms (5,500 m) of water.[2]

 

In all, Yorktown's sinking on 7 June 1942 claimed the lives of 141 of her officers and crewmen.[citation needed]

Honors and rediscovery

 

Yorktown (CV-5) earned three battle stars for her World War II service, two of them for the significant part she had played in stopping Japanese expansion and turning the tide of the war at Coral Sea and at Midway.[2]

 

On 19 May 1998, the wreck of Yorktown was found and photographed by renowned oceanographer Dr. Robert D. Ballard, discoverer of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic and the German battleship Bismarck. The wreck of the Yorktown, 3 miles (5 km) beneath the surface, was (and may still be) in excellent condition although she had spent 56 years on the deep-sea floor; much paint and equipment were still visible.[5] As of March 2015, there have not been any follow-up expeditions to the Yorktown '​s wreckage.

In culture

 

In the 2001 science fiction novel by Connie Willis entitled Passage, one character, a loquacious elderly man named Ed Wojakowski, claims to be a World War II veteran in the United States Navy who served on the Yorktown.

 

My background, huh? Well, I'll tell ya, I'm an old navy man. Served on the USS Yorktown... Aircraft carrier. Best damn one in the Pacific. Sank four carriers at the Battle of Midway before a Jap sub got her. Torpedo. Got a destroyer that was standing in the way, too. The Hammann. Went down just like that. Dead before she even knew it. Two minutes. All hands.[6]

 

In the Star Trek universe, there are at least two ships named USS Yorktown.

 

Yorktown plays a prominent role in the 2007 real-time tactics/action game Battlestations: Midway, in which the player gets to control her in three of the game's primary missions: The Strike on Tulagi, the Battle of the Coral Sea, and the opening of the Battle of Midway.

See also

Calcite, Paint

Thebes, Valley of the Kings, Tomb of Tutankhamun (KV 62).

New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, Reign of Tutankhamun (1355-1346 BCE).

 

Tutankhamun's tomb held more than eighty vessels of oils and unguents, but thieves stole most of the contents. This container has a central frieze in which the royal throne name appears in a cryptographic writing, ensuring the survival of the king's name.

 

King Tut exhibit, Seattle Washington, 2012.

The Enigma Machine played a key role in World War II. The German military depended on the Enigma Machine to encrypt communications, but the Allies invested a tremendous amount of effort in decryption and achieved significant success. This provided the Allies a large advantage.

 

I believe this is a German Wehrmacht (military) Enigma (please let me know if that is not correct). Near the top are the keys pressed by the operator, entering the characters to be encrypted. Beyond the keyboard is the lampboard. As the operator pressed a key, the encrypted version of that letter would light on the lampboard. At the bottom of the photo is the plugboard. Routine wires in different ways on the plugboard contributed to the encryption of characters.

 

Seen at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.

My exams are coming up, so most of my photograhpy are either of myself studying, my room mates or scenes from somewhere between my home and my university. This is an example of the former.

 

I think this is cryptography I'm reading. It might be analysis, though.

 

This was blogged on http://www.bainsixmonths.com/

 

View On Black

 

Explored #397 on Dec 30, 2007

Un fet rellevant de la Segona Guerra Mundial fou com els desxifradors britanics identificaren les parts i el funcionament de la complexa maquina Lorenz, i la reconstruiren sense mai veure'n cap (fins al final de la guerra). La 'copia' britanica, fisicament a les antipodes de la original alemanya, es aquesta i s'anomenà Tunny Machine.

 

Bletchley Park és un dels llocs més fascinants de la història del segle XX. Aquí, durant la II Guerra Mundial i buscant la manera de desxifrar els codis militars alemanys, en sorgí la informàtica i els ordinadors.

  

ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park

 

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The Tunny Machine was the british copy, reverse-enginered, of the german Lorenz SZ-42 cipher machine. It's quite impressive how the people at Bletchley Park, specially John Tiltman and William Tutte. Tutte was who discovered the intern workings of Lorenz without even seeing one, just by it's cipher system.

 

Bletchley Park is one of the most amazing historical places related to the XX Century in general and to WWII in particular. Here, during the colossal effort to crack the german military codes, computers and computing science were born (or at least had their main intial development).

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Lorenz_cipher

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY

 

Statue of Liberty The Statue of Liberty in New York harbour was presented in 1884 as a gift from the French Grand Orient Temple Masons to the Masons of America in celebration of the centenary of the first Alchemic Republic. She is holding the Alchemic "Torch of Enlightenment". Also referred to back in the 1700's by the Illuminati Masons as the "Flaming Torch of Reason". The Torch represents the "Sun" in the sky. The Statue of Liberty's official title is, "Liberty Enlightening the World".

 

.THE TORCH SYMBOL

 

Illuminati means to "bare light" one way to symbolize this is by carrying a torch. A torch sits on top of the Statue of Liberty, on top of JFK's grave, and on top of the tunnel where Princess Diana was killed. Best selling author, Robert Bauval: "The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty was placed in a solemn ceremony in 1884 organised by the Alchemic lodges of New York. The Statue of Liberty, which was designed by the French sculptor Bartholdi and actually built by the French Engineer, Gustave Eiffel (both well-known Freemasons), was not originally a ‘Statue of Liberty’ at all, but first planned by Bartholdi for the opening of the Suez Canal in Egypt in 1867.

 

Bartholdi, like many French Alchemists of his time, was deeply steeped in ‘Egyptian’ rituals, and it has often been said that he conceived the original statue as an effigy of the goddess Isis, and only later converted it to a ‘Statue of Liberty’ for New York harbour when it was rejected for the Suez Canal." The goddess Isis is known by many names, including Juno. Interestingly, the goddess Juno made an appearance on a Vatican coin in 1963 (notice her torch) during the period of the alleged Alchemist Roncalli's Pontificate, the curiously named John XXIII, architect of the disasterous Vatican II. Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the Sculpture of the Statue of Liberty, on a Alchemist Card (notice the Alchemic compass and square). "The 'torch' analogy is very interesting. The original statue of Bartholdi destined first for Port Said at the mouth of the Suez Canal, was also to bear a torch intended to symbolise 'the Orient showing the way'. The 'Grand Orient', of course, is the name of the French Masonic mother lodge, and to which Bartholdi belonged. There is another similar 'torch' that played a strange role in the French Revolution, but of which I will reveal later in my forthcoming book "Talisman". It still is to be seen in the skyline of Paris today.

 

People today do not realise the power of such symbolism, and how they can be used with devastating effect on the minds of the unsuspecting masses. And this is worrying. The SS Nazi movement made prolific use of all these 'symbol games', and wreeked havoc in the world." "The Illuminati" Enlightening the World (and keeping the rest of us in the dark) - Pre 9-11 picture, showing WTC towers & Statue of Liberty's Torch.

 

'Baphomet'

Baphomet, the name of the severed head the Knights Templar worshiped, translates into English from Latin as 'Temple of the Father of Peace of all Men' via the reverse anagram Green Language technique known as Anastrophe [David Ovason: Author 'The Notradamus Code' and 'The Secret Zodiac's of Washington DC']. This is what the Temple of the Caananites Capital City of Salem was known as before it was captured by the tribes of Abraham, who renamed it Jerusalem.

Peeling the Occult Onion further we apply the more sophisticated Alchemic/Templar/Kabbalist cryptographic method known as the Atbash Cipher to Baphomet and arrive at it's innermost meaning and translation - SOPHIA [David Ovason: Author 'The Notradamus Code' and 'The Secret Zodiac's of Washington DC']. Sophia is often illustrated with a beard due to her having gone through the Alchemical 'Blackening' Sex Magic Ritual known as the 'Great Work' which transformed her into an immortal, all powerful Hermaphrodite.

Sophia is Astoreth/Lilith/Mari the worship of whom was secretly re-introduced by King Soloman - who Freemasonry says was their first Grand Master - against the expressed wishes of God through Moses. Ashtoreth required human burnt offerings - preferably babies of prominent families - which was performed in the Valley of Hinnom/Gehenna/Hell at the base of Mount Zion/Sion.

 

ANNONA --- The goddess of the wheat harvest, and the deity over-seeing the grain imports from Africa. Attributes: grain stalks, prow modius, cornucopia.

 

BRITANNIA --- The personification of the British Province. Antoninus Pius issued a set of bronze coins in Rome to be circulated in Britian.

 

CERES --- The Hellenistic goddess of grain (Demeter). Depicted on bronze/brass coins to suggest a plentiful food supply to the masses. Attributes: holds grain, torch, and veiled head

 

CYBELE --- The mother of the gods, Mother earth. Also known as Magna Mater (the Great Mother). Attributes: turreted and veiled head, lions; often riding a lion-drawn cart. Titles: MAGNA MATER, MATER DEI

 

DIANA, DIANA LVCIFERA --- The Hellenistic goddess of the hunt and the moon goddess (Artemis); also the patroness of children. Attributes: crescent moon, torch, bow and arrow, hunting dog, stag. Titles: LUCIFERA (light-bringer), CONSERVATRIX, VICTRIX.

 

ISIS --- An Egyptian goddess of the underworld and the wife of Osiris, who represented the birth and death of one year. Attributes: rattle (sistrum), bucket.

 

IVNO, IVNONIS --- Juno (Hera), the consort of Jupiter, and the patroness of child birth. Attributes: peacock, scepter, patera. Titles: CONSERVATRIX, LVCINA, REGINA

 

IVNO FELIX --- Happy Juno.

 

IVNO LVCINA --- Goddess of light.

 

IVNO REGINA --- Juno the Queen.

 

IVNONI MARTIALI --- The war like Juno.

 

LIBER --- The Hellenistic goddess of wine (Bacchus/Dionysios). Attributes: wine cup, thyrsos (a staff ornamented with grape leaves), crown of ivy leaves, panther.

 

LIBERALITAS --- The personification of generosity, and frequently, an indirect reference to a specific Imperial donative to the urban population. Attributes: tessera, cornucopia.

 

LIBERTAS --- The personification of liberty. Often used by usurpers claiming to restore the liberty of the Roman Republic. Attributes: pileus (pointed hat), scepter.

 

LVNA --- An alternative manifestation of the moon goddess, as used by Julia Domna and Gallienus; more appropriately a personification of the moon.

 

MATER MAGNA --- see CYBELE

 

PAX --- The personification of peace. Attributes: olive branch, scepter, cornucopia, caduceus.

 

SALVS --- The goddess of health and safety. On the basis from an old Italic custom of pleasing the gods by sacrificing a virgin to the sacred snakes. Salus usually appears on a coin after suppression of a coup against the emperor, or when an emperor recovers from an illness. Attributes: sacrificing to snake from patera. The snake is usually rising from the altar or being held in arms.

 

SEGENTIA --- The Roman goddess of the ripening of wheat, or crops.

 

VENVS, VENERIS ---The Hellenistic goddess of love and beauty (Aphrodite). She was the patron goddess of Julius Caesar and then the Julian line (Venus Genetrix). (VENERIS is the genative form) Attributes: apple, small figure of Victory. Titles: CAELESTIS (of the skies), FELIX, GENETRIX, VICTRIX.

 

VICTORIA --- The Hellenistic goddess of Victory (Nike). Frequently appears as an attribute to other deities, such as Roma, Jupiter and Venus. Attributes: wreath, wings.

 

VVLCAN --- The Hellenistic goddess of iron, fire and wepons (Hephaistos). Attributes: hammer, tongs, anvil.

  

GLORIA NOVI SAECVLI --- The glory of the new age.

 

The Virgin is consicrated to Isis, just as Leo is consecrated to her husband Osiris... The sphinx, composed of a Lion and a Virgin, was used as a symbol to designate the overflowing Nile... they put a wheat-ear in the hand of a virgin, to express the idea of the months, perhaps because the sign of Virgin was called by the Orientals, Sounbouleh or Schibbolet, that is to say, epi or wheat ear.

 

"Lucifer represents.. Life.. Thought.. Progress.. Civilization.. Liberty.. Independence.. Lucifer is the Logos.. the Serpent, the Savior." pages 171, 225, 255 (Volume II)

"It is Satan who is the God of our planet and the only God." pages 215, 216, 220, 245, 255, 533, (VI)

"The Celestial Virgin which thus becomes the Mother of Gods and Devils at one and the same time; for she is the ever-loving beneficent Deity...but in antiquity and reality Lucifer or Luciferius is the name. Lucifer is divine and terrestial Light, 'the Holy Ghost' and 'Satan' at one and the same time." page 539

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky 32°

The Secret Doctrine 'Virgo, the Weeping Virgin'

 

Alchemy still retains among its emblems one of a woman weeping over a broken column, holding in her hand a branch of acacia, myrtle, or tamarisk, while Time, we are told, stands behind her combing out the ringlets of her hair. We need not repeat the vapid and trivial explanation... given, of this representation of Isis, weeping at Byblos, over the column torn from the palace of the King, that contained the body of Osiris, while Horus, the God of Time, pours ambrosia on her hair.

 

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Bletchley Park és un dels llocs més fascinants de la historia del segle XX. Aquí, durant la II Guerra Mundial i buscant la manera de desxifrar els codis militars alemanys, en sorgí la informatica i els ordinadors.

 

Aqui teniu la reencarnació del primer ordinador del mon, el Colossus! Els models originals foren destruits per guardar-ne el secret despres de la SGM, però un esforçat grup d'enginyers anglesos l'ha refet fa uns pocs anys. El seu unic proposit era desxifrar els aparentment imposibles codis de la maquina alemanya Lorenz, que podeu veure a la foto del costat.

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1ofh6n8VZY&feature=related

 

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus

 

ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park

 

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Enlarge This Photo

 

Bletchley Park is one of the most amazing historical places related to the XX Century in general and to WWII in particular. Here, during the colossal effort to crack the german military codes, computers and computing science were born (or at least had their main intial development).

 

This is the reborn Colossus, the first computer in history. The original ones were destroyed during the Cold War, but some years ago, a heroic team managed to built an exact, full working replica. Colossus managed to broke the almost unbreakable Lorenz machine cyphers, used by Hitler's hight command in WWII.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer

 

www.codesandciphers.org.uk/index.htm

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park

 

www.bletchleypark.org/

 

www.bletchleypark.org/content/museum.rhtm

 

For an impresive virtual visit, take a look to these videos:

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmMFp2FQPsY

Un parell de màquines Enigma alemanyes. Els exèrcits de Hitler empraven aquestes màquines codificadores per encriptar les seves comunicacions. Al fons un model amb 3 rotors, i al davant, un de més avançat amb 4 rotors. Aquest darrer fou emprat per la Kriegsmarine per provar de protegir encara més els seus submarins de la detecció aliada. Però així i tot, els experts britanics de Bletchley Park trencaren novament els codis alemanys.

 

ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%c3%a0quina_Enigma

 

Aqui a sota teniu un video, en anglès sobre el seu funcionament:

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJm4-lqRJDc

  

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The Enigma is the famous german cypher machine. Although it produced literally millions of millions of possible combinations, the codebreakers cracked it, with their brains, the Bombe machine, and a lof of hard work. In the background there's an earlier model with 3 rotors, and in the foreground a more advanced M4 - four rotors Kriegsmarine model, used in their U-boats. But anyway, some months after this change, the british experts in Bletchley Park managed to break the codes again and till the end of the war.

 

Here you have more information about Enigma, and a wonderful emulator program:

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJm4-lqRJDc

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine

 

The emulator (all the site is wonderful):

users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/en/enigmasim.htm

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe

 

www.jharper.demon.co.uk/bombe1.htm

Michele Reilly is a scientist, an artist, and a systems thinker whose work resists easy classification. She trained in architecture and art at Cooper Union, where she began building intelligent machines and quickly became fascinated by the logic behind them. That curiosity drew her into mathematics, cryptography, macroeconomics, and eventually quantum physics. Her path has been shaped less by credentials than by the depth of her questions.

 

At MIT, where she teaches in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Michele works at the intersection of computation and the structure of spacetime. She explores how information flows through the universe, drawing from Claude Shannon’s foundational theories and extending them into the quantum realm. Her research is ambitious, but it is rooted in careful thinking. She is not interested in speculation for its own sake. She wants to know what can be built, what can be measured, and what will last.

 

In 2016, she co-founded Turing, a quantum technology startup focused on building portable quantum memories and tools for long-distance quantum communication. She works closely with physicist Seth Lloyd on designing the scalable, robust systems needed to move quantum computing from theory into practice. The work is intricate and deliberate, building slowly toward a future that she sees as both beautiful and unfamiliar.

 

Michele is also a storyteller. Her science fiction series Steeplechase has received awards at Cannes and other international festivals. It reflects her belief that narrative and science are not separate pursuits, but parallel ways of exploring the unknown. In her teaching, she brings these strands together, guiding students through exercises that combine quantum theory, creative writing, and world-building. One of her courses, supported by MIT’s Center for Art, Science and Technology, invites students to imagine speculative futures grounded in scientific inquiry.

 

On her arm is a tattoo of Alan Turing. It is not ornamental. It is a quiet tribute to a thinker whose life and work continue to shape her own. Turing’s dedication to truth, structure, and the ethical weight of technology is a constant presence in her thinking. She carries it with her, quite literally.

 

The portrait above was made at The Interval at the Long Now Foundation in San Francisco. Michele is seated beside a polished table that reflects her image. Behind her stands the Orrery, a planetary model designed to keep time for ten thousand years. The setting reflects the spirit of her work. She is grounded in the present but always thinking forward, asking how we might live in ways that honor complexity, care, and continuity. She does not speak often about legacy. She speaks about attention, about precision, and about the discipline of staying with difficult questions until they begin to yield something real.

Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor's park during their inaugural appearance during "Exercise Resilient Typhoon", at the Francisco C. Ada International Airport, Saipan, April 23, 2019. Units from across Pacific Air Forces are practicing rapid re-deployments in new locations as part of a dispersal exercise called Resilient Typhoon. The Raptors are based out of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii and are comprised of Airmen from the Hawaii Air National Guard’s 154th Wing and their active-duty counterparts from the 15th Wing.

  

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is a fifth-generation, single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). The result of the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program, the aircraft was designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, but also has ground attack, electronic warfare, and signal intelligence capabilities. The prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, built most of the F-22's airframe and weapons systems and conducted final assembly, while Boeing provided the wings, aft fuselage, avionics integration, and training systems.

 

The aircraft was variously designated F-22 and F/A-22 before it formally entered service in December 2005 as the F-22A. Despite its protracted development and various operational issues, USAF officials consider the F-22 a critical component of the service's tactical air power. Its combination of stealth, aerodynamic performance, and situational awareness enable unprecedented air combat capabilities.

 

Service officials had originally planned to buy a total of 750 ATFs. In 2009, the program was cut to 187 operational production aircraft due to high costs, a lack of clear air-to-air missions due to delays in Russian and Chinese fighter programs, a ban on exports, and development of the more versatile F-35. The last F-22 was delivered in 2012.

  

Development

 

Origins

 

In 1981, the U.S. Air Force identified a requirement for an Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) to replace the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon. Code named "Senior Sky", this air-superiority fighter program was influenced by emerging worldwide threats, including new developments in Soviet air defense systems and the proliferation of the Su-27 Flanker- and MiG-29 Fulcrum-class of fighter aircraft. It would take advantage of the new technologies in fighter design on the horizon, including composite materials, lightweight alloys, advanced flight control systems, more powerful propulsion systems, and most importantly, stealth technology. In 1983, the ATF concept development team became the System Program Office (SPO) and managed the program at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The demonstration and validation (Dem/Val) request for proposals (RFP) was issued in September 1985, with requirements placing strong emphasis on stealth and supercruise. Of the seven bidding companies, Lockheed and Northrop were selected on 31 October 1986. Lockheed teamed with Boeing and General Dynamics while Northrop teamed with McDonnell Douglas, and the two contractor teams undertook a 50-month Dem/Val phase, culminating in the flight test of two technology demonstrator prototypes, the YF-22 and the YF-23, respectively.

 

Dem/Val was focused on risk reduction and technology development plans over specific aircraft designs. Contractors made extensive use of analytical and empirical methods, including computational fluid dynamics, wind-tunnel testing, and radar cross-section calculations and pole testing; the Lockheed team would conduct nearly 18,000 hours of wind-tunnel testing. Avionics development was marked by extensive testing and prototyping and supported by ground and flying laboratories. During Dem/Val, the SPO used the results of performance and cost trade studies conducted by contractor teams to adjust ATF requirements and delete ones that were significant weight and cost drivers while having marginal value. The short takeoff and landing (STOL) requirement was relaxed in order to delete thrust-reversers, saving substantial weight. As avionics was a major cost driver, side-looking radars were deleted, and the dedicated infra-red search and track (IRST) system was downgraded from multi-color to single color and then deleted as well. However, space and cooling provisions were retained to allow for future addition of these components. The ejection seat requirement was downgraded from a fresh design to the existing McDonnell Douglas ACES II. Despite efforts by the contractor teams to rein in weight, the takeoff gross weight estimate was increased from 50,000 lb (22,700 kg) to 60,000 lb (27,200 kg), resulting in engine thrust requirement increasing from 30,000 lbf (133 kN) to 35,000 lbf (156 kN) class.

 

Each team produced two prototype air vehicles for Dem/Val, one for each of the two engine options. The YF-22 had its maiden flight on 29 September 1990 and in flight tests achieved up to Mach 1.58 in supercruise. After the Dem/Val flight test of the prototypes, on 23 April 1991, Secretary of the USAF Donald Rice announced the Lockheed team as the winner of the ATF competition. The YF-23 design was considered stealthier and faster, while the YF-22, with its thrust vectoring nozzles, was more maneuverable as well as less expensive and risky. The aviation press speculated that the Lockheed team's design was also more adaptable to the U.S. Navy's Navalized Advanced Tactical Fighter (NATF), but by 1992, the Navy had abandoned NATF.

  

Production and procurement

 

As the program moved to full-scale development, or the Engineering & Manufacturing Development (EMD) stage, the production version had notable differences from the YF-22, despite having a broadly similar shape. The swept-back angle of the leading edge was decreased from 48° to 42°, while the vertical stabilizers were shifted rearward and decreased in area by 20%. To improve pilot visibility, the canopy was moved forward 7 inches (18 cm), and the engine intakes moved rearward 14 inches (36 cm). The shapes of the wing and stabilator trailing edges were refined to improve aerodynamics, strength, and stealth characteristics. Increasing weight during development caused slight reductions in range and maneuver performance.

 

Prime contractor Lockheed Martin Aeronautics manufactured the majority of the airframe and performed final assembly at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia; program partner Boeing Defense, Space & Security provided additional airframe components as well as avionics integration and training systems. The first F-22, an EMD aircraft with tail number 4001, was unveiled at Marietta, Georgia, on 9 April 1997, and first flew on 7 September 1997. Production, with the first lot awarded in September 2000, supported over 1,000 subcontractors and suppliers from 46 states and up to 95,000 jobs, and spanned 15 years at a peak rate of roughly two airplanes per month. In 2006, the F-22 development team won the Collier Trophy, American aviation's most prestigious award. Due to the aircraft's advanced nature, contractors have been targeted by cyberattacks and technology theft.

 

The USAF originally envisioned ordering 750 ATFs at a total program cost of $44.3 billion and procurement cost of $26.2 billion in fiscal year (FY) 1985 dollars, with production beginning in 1994. The 1990 Major Aircraft Review led by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney reduced this to 648 aircraft beginning in 1996. By 1997, funding instability had further cut the total to 339, which was again reduced to 277 by 2003. In 2004, the Department of Defense (DoD) further reduced this to 183 operational aircraft, despite the USAF's preference for 381. A multi-year procurement plan was implemented in 2006 to save $15 billion, with total program cost projected to be $62 billion for 183 F-22s distributed to seven combat squadrons. In 2008, Congress passed a defense spending bill that raised the total orders for production aircraft to 187.

 

The first two F-22s built were EMD aircraft in the Block 1.0 configuration for initial flight testing, while the third was a Block 2.0 aircraft built to represent the internal structure of production airframes and enabled it to test full flight loads. Six more EMD aircraft were built in the Block 10 configuration for development and upgrade testing, with the last two considered essentially production quality jets. Production for operational squadrons consisted of 37 Block 20 training aircraft and 149 Block 30/35 combat aircraft; one of the Block 35 aircraft is dedicated to flight sciences at Edwards Air Force Base.

 

The numerous new technologies in the F-22 resulted in substantial cost overruns and delays. Many capabilities were deferred to post-service upgrades, reducing the initial cost but increasing total program cost. As production wound down in 2011, the total program cost is estimated to be about $67.3 billion, with $32.4 billion spent on Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) and $34.9 billion on procurement and military construction (MILCON) in then year dollars. The incremental cost for an additional F-22 was estimated at about $138 million in 2009.

 

Ban on exports

 

The F-22 cannot be exported under US federal law to protect its stealth technology and other high-tech features. Customers for U.S. fighters are acquiring earlier designs such as the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon or the newer F-35 Lightning II, which contains technology from the F-22 but was designed to be cheaper, more flexible, and available for export. In September 2006, Congress upheld the ban on foreign F-22 sales. Despite the ban, the 2010 defense authorization bill included provisions requiring the DoD to prepare a report on the costs and feasibility for an F-22 export variant, and another report on the effect of F-22 export sales on U.S. aerospace industry.

 

Some Australian politicians and defense commentators proposed that Australia should attempt to purchase F-22s instead of the planned F-35s, citing the F-22's known capabilities and F-35's delays and developmental uncertainties. However, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) determined that the F-22 was unable to perform the F-35's strike and close air support roles. The Japanese government also showed interest in the F-22 for its Replacement-Fighter program. The Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) would reportedly require fewer fighters for its mission if it obtained the F-22, thus reducing engineering and staffing costs. However, in 2009 it was reported that acquiring the F-22 would require increases to the Japanese government's defense budget beyond the historical 1 percent of its GDP. With the end of F-22 production, Japan chose the F-35 in December 2011. Israel also expressed interest, but eventually chose the F-35 because of the F-22's price and unavailability.

 

Production termination

 

Throughout the 2000s, the need for F-22s was debated, due to rising costs and the lack of relevant adversaries. In 2006, Comptroller General of the United States David Walker found that "the DoD has not demonstrated the need" for more investment in the F-22, and further opposition to the program was expressed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon R. England, Senator John McCain, and Chairman of U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services Senator John Warner. The F-22 program lost influential supporters in 2008 after the forced resignations of Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force General T. Michael Moseley.

 

In November 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the F-22 was not relevant in post-Cold War conflicts such as irregular warfare operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in April 2009, under the new Obama Administration, he called for ending production in FY2011, leaving the USAF with 187 production aircraft. In July, General James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated to the Senate Committee on Armed Services his reasons for supporting termination of F-22 production. They included shifting resources to the multirole F-35 to allow proliferation of fifth-generation fighters for three service branches and preserving the F/A-18 production line to maintain the military's electronic warfare (EW) capabilities in the Boeing EA-18G Growler. Issues with the F-22's reliability and availability also raised concerns. After President Obama threatened to veto further production, the Senate voted in July 2009 in favor of ending production and the House subsequently agreed to abide by the 187 production aircraft cap. Gates stated that the decision was taken in light of the F-35's capabilities, and in 2010, he set the F-22 requirement to 187 aircraft by lowering the number of major regional conflict preparations from two to one.

 

In 2010, USAF initiated a study to determine the costs of retaining F-22 tooling for a future Service Life Extension Program (SLEP). A RAND Corporation paper from this study estimated that restarting production and building an additional 75 F-22s would cost $17 billion, resulting in $227 million per aircraft, or $54 million higher than the flyaway cost. Lockheed Martin stated that restarting the production line itself would cost about $200 million. Production tooling and associated documentation were subsequently stored at the Sierra Army Depot, allowing the retained tooling to support the fleet life cycle. There were reports that attempts to retrieve this tooling found empty containers, but a subsequent audit found that the tooling was stored as expected.

 

Russian and Chinese fighter developments have fueled concern, and in 2009, General John Corley, head of Air Combat Command, stated that a fleet of 187 F-22s would be inadequate, but Secretary Gates dismissed General Corley's concern. In 2011, Gates explained that Chinese fifth-generation fighter developments had been accounted for when the number of F-22s was set, and that the U.S. would have a considerable advantage in stealth aircraft in 2025, even with F-35 delays. In December 2011, the 195th and final F-22 was completed out of 8 test EMD and 187 operational aircraft produced; the aircraft was delivered to the USAF on 2 May 2012.

 

In April 2016, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee proposed legislation that would direct the Air Force to conduct a cost study and assessment associated with resuming production of the F-22. Since the production halt directed in 2009 by then Defense Secretary Gates, lawmakers and the Pentagon noted that air warfare systems of Russia and China were catching up to those of the U.S. Lockheed Martin has proposed upgrading the Block 20 training aircraft into combat-coded Block 30/35 versions as a way to increase numbers available for deployment. On 9 June 2017, the Air Force submitted their report to Congress stating they had no plans to restart the F-22 production line due to economic and operational issues; it estimated it would cost approximately $50 billion to procure 194 additional F-22s at a cost of $206–$216 million per aircraft, including approximately $9.9 billion for non-recurring start-up costs and $40.4 billion for aircraft procurement costs.

 

Upgrades

 

The first aircraft with combat-capable Block 3.0 software flew in 2001. Increment 2, the first upgrade program, was implemented in 2005 for Block 20 aircraft onward and enabled the employment of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM). Certification of the improved AN/APG-77(V)1 radar was completed in March 2007, and airframes from production Lot 5 onward are fitted with this radar, which incorporates air-to-ground modes. Increment 3.1 for Block 30 aircraft onward provided improved ground-attack capability through synthetic aperture radar mapping and radio emitter direction finding, electronic attack and Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) integration; testing began in 2009 and the first upgraded aircraft was delivered in 2011. To address oxygen deprivation issues, F-22s were fitted with an automatic backup oxygen system (ABOS) and modified life support system starting in 2012.

 

Increment 3.2 for Block 35 aircraft is a two-part upgrade process; 3.2A focuses on electronic warfare, communications and identification, while 3.2B includes geolocation improvements and a new stores management system to show the correct symbols for the AIM-9X and AIM-120D. To enable two-way communication with other platforms, the F-22 can use the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) as a gateway. The planned Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL) integration was cut due to development delays and lack of proliferation among USAF platforms. The F-22 fleet is planned to start receiving Increment 3.2B as well as a software upgrade for cryptography capabilities and avionics stability in May 2019. A Multifunctional Information Distribution System-Joint (MIDS-J) radio that replaces the current Link-16 receive-only box is expected to be operational by 2020. Subsequent upgrades are also focusing on having an open architecture to enable faster future enhancements.

 

In 2024, funding is projected to begin for the F-22 mid-life upgrade (MLU), which is expected to include new sensors and antennas, hardware refresh, cockpit improvements, and a helmet mounted display and cuing system. Other enhancements being developed include IRST functionality for the AN/AAR-56 Missile Launch Detector (MLD) and more durable stealth coating based on the F-35's.

 

The F-22 was designed for a service life of 8,000 flight hours, with a $350 million "structures retrofit program". Investigations are being made for upgrades to extend their useful lives further. In the long term, the F-22 is expected to be superseded by a sixth-generation jet fighter to be fielded in the 2030s.

  

Design

 

Overview

 

The F-22 Raptor is a fifth-generation fighter that is considered fourth generation in stealth aircraft technology by the USAF.[91] It is the first operational aircraft to combine supercruise, supermaneuverability, stealth, and sensor fusion in a single weapons platform. The F-22 has four empennage surfaces, retractable tricycle landing gear, and clipped delta wings with reverse trailing edge sweep and leading edge extensions running to the upper outboard corner of the inlets. Flight control surfaces include leading-edge flaps, flaperons, ailerons, rudders on the canted vertical stabilizers, and all-moving horizontal tails (stabilators); for speed brake function, the ailerons deflect up, flaperons down, and rudders outwards to increase drag.

 

The aircraft's dual Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 augmented turbofan engines are closely spaced and incorporate pitch-axis thrust vectoring nozzles with a range of ±20 degrees; each engine has maximum thrust in the 35,000 lbf (156 kN) class. The F-22's thrust-to-weight ratio at typical combat weight is nearly at unity in maximum military power and 1.25 in full afterburner. Maximum speed without external stores is approximately Mach 1.8 at military power and greater than Mach 2 with afterburners.

 

The F-22's high cruise speed and operating altitude over prior fighters improve the effectiveness of its sensors and weapon systems, and increase survivability against ground defenses such as surface-to-air missiles. The aircraft is among only a few that can supercruise, or sustain supersonic flight without using fuel-inefficient afterburners; it can intercept targets which subsonic aircraft would lack the speed to pursue and an afterburner-dependent aircraft would lack the fuel to reach. The F-22's thrust and aerodynamics enable regular combat speeds of Mach 1.5 at 50,000 feet (15,000 m). The use of internal weapons bays permits the aircraft to maintain comparatively higher performance over most other combat-configured fighters due to a lack of aerodynamic drag from external stores. The aircraft's structure contains a significant amount of high-strength materials to withstand stress and heat of sustained supersonic flight. Respectively, titanium alloys and composites comprise 39% and 24% of the structural weight.

 

The F-22's aerodynamics, relaxed stability, and powerful thrust-vectoring engines give it excellent maneuverability and energy potential across its flight envelope. The airplane has excellent high alpha (angle of attack) characteristics, capable of flying at trimmed alpha of over 60° while maintaining roll control and performing maneuvers such as the Herbst maneuver (J-turn) and Pugachev's Cobra. The flight control system and full-authority digital engine control (FADEC) make the aircraft highly departure resistant and controllable, thus giving the pilot carefree handling.

  

Stealth

 

The F-22 was designed to be highly difficult to detect and track by radar. Measures to reduce radar cross-section (RCS) include airframe shaping such as alignment of edges, fixed-geometry serpentine inlets and curved vanes that prevent line-of-sight of the engine faces and turbines from any exterior view, use of radar-absorbent material (RAM), and attention to detail such as hinges and pilot helmets that could provide a radar return. The F-22 was also designed to have decreased radio emissions, infrared signature and acoustic signature as well as reduced visibility to the naked eye. The aircraft's flat thrust-vectoring nozzles reduce infrared emissions of the exhaust plume to mitigate the threat of infrared homing ("heat seeking") surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles. Additional measures to reduce the infrared signature include special topcoat and active cooling of leading edges to manage the heat buildup from supersonic flight.

 

Compared to previous stealth designs like the F-117, the F-22 is less reliant on RAM, which are maintenance-intensive and susceptible to adverse weather conditions. Unlike the B-2, which requires climate-controlled hangars, the F-22 can undergo repairs on the flight line or in a normal hangar. The F-22 has a Signature Assessment System which delivers warnings when the radar signature is degraded and necessitates repair. While the F-22's exact RCS is classified, in 2009 Lockheed Martin released information indicating that from certain angles the aircraft has an RCS of 0.0001 m² or −40 dBsm – equivalent to the radar reflection of a "steel marble". Effectively maintaining the stealth features can decrease the F-22's mission capable rate to 62–70%.

 

The effectiveness of the stealth characteristics is difficult to gauge. The RCS value is a restrictive measurement of the aircraft's frontal or side area from the perspective of a static radar. When an aircraft maneuvers it exposes a completely different set of angles and surface area, potentially increasing radar observability. Furthermore, the F-22's stealth contouring and radar absorbent materials are chiefly effective against high-frequency radars, usually found on other aircraft. The effects of Rayleigh scattering and resonance mean that low-frequency radars such as weather radars and early-warning radars are more likely to detect the F-22 due to its physical size. However, such radars are also conspicuous, susceptible to clutter, and have low precision. Additionally, while faint or fleeting radar contacts make defenders aware that a stealth aircraft is present, reliably vectoring interception to attack the aircraft is much more challenging. According to the USAF an F-22 surprised an Iranian F-4 Phantom II that was attempting to intercept an American UAV, despite Iran's assertion of having military VHF radar coverage over the Persian Gulf.

The light you see here comes only from the camera flash; most of the time, this room is totally dark. It's spooky when you first shine your flashlight and realize that you're standing in a room full of dead typewriters!

Nobel Prize in physics awarded for breakthroughs in quantum mechanics

  

By Joel Achenbach

Updated October 4, 2022 at 8:05 a.m. EDT|Published October 4, 2022 at 6:17 a.m. EDT

 

0:36 / 1:04

Physicists John F. Clauser, Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger received the 2022 Nobel Prize in physics on Oct. 4, for their research in quantum mechanics. (Video: AP)

  

The 2022 Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to three physicists for their pioneering experiments in quantum information science, a burgeoning field that could revolutionize computing, cryptography and the transfer of information via what is known as “quantum teleportation.”

  

John F. Clauser, 79, an American physicist in Walnut Creek, Calif., was laureated along with Alain Aspect of Université Paris-Saclay and École Polytechnique in France and Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna in Austria.

“It was very kind to receive your phone call just about an hour ago. I’m still kind of shocked,” Zeilinger said in an interview conducted during the news conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobels.

 

When asked by a reporter if, in 10,000 years, it will be possible to teleport one’s own body to another place, he answered that the teleportation of people is “science fiction.”

Quantum mechanics is an area of physics going back more than a century, and has already yielded applications that people use in everyday life, from transistors to lasers. But the potential applications of the principles of quantum mechanics appear limitless.

 

The physicists honored Tuesday found ways to confirm what had been previously theorized, including the “entanglement” of photons (particles of light).

In a press release, the Academy explained the phenomenon, which Albert Einstein famously referred to as “spooky action at a distance”: “What happens to one particle in an entangled pair determines what happens to the other, even if they are really too far apart to affect each other. The laureates’ development of experimental tools has laid the foundation for a new era of quantum technology.”

 

The experiments in quantum entanglement cited by the Academy began more than half a century ago. In 1972, Clauser and a colleague, Stuart Freedman — who died in 2012 — used an apparatus that emitted two entangled photons in a manner consistent with predictions of quantum mechanics, according to the Academy. As a French doctoral student, Aspect improved the efficiency of the experiments and the clarity of the results, and Zeilinger then explored systems that used more than two entangled particles, the Academy explained.

“These experiments have probed the very foundations of the quantum world, and have brought into focus the most striking and challenging aspects of quantum physics,” physicist Stephen Bartlett of the University of Sydney and the lead editor of the American Physical Society’s quantum journal, said Tuesday by email. “Specifically, they demonstrate that ‘entangled’ quantum particles behave in a way completely at odds with our notions of how independent, separate objects should behave.”

Asked after the news conference in Stockholm about the meaning of quantum mechanics, Thors Hans Hansson, a theoretical physicist and member of the Nobel committee for physics, told reporters, “That is something you never get finished with. You always wonder what is it, how do you understand it and you try to go deeper and deeper into it.”

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The Academy’s physics prize tends to rotate through the many disciplines within the sprawling physics enterprise, which covers everything from subatomic particles to the origin of the universe. Last year the prize focused on climate change, with the prize going to Syukuro Manabe of the United States and Klaus Hasselmann of Germany for research on the human influence on climate, and to Giorgio Parisi, an Italian theorist whose work described fluctuating systems at different physical scales.

In 2020, black holes were the focus of the Academy, which awarded prizes to American astrophysicists Andrea Ghez of the United States and Reinhard Genzel of Germany, as well as the British mathematical physicist Roger Penrose.

This is a developing story. It will be updated.

An Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, from the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor Demonstration Team at Langley AFB, Va., flies in formation with a Chilean F-16 Fighting Falcon over the 2016 International Air and Space Fair (FIDAE) in Santiago, Chile, April 1, 2016, 2016. During the FIDAE Air and Space Trade Show, U.S. Airmen participated in several subject matter expert exchanges with their Chilean counterparts and also hosted static displays and aerial demonstrations to support the air show.

  

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is a fifth-generation, single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). The result of the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program, the aircraft was designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, but also has ground attack, electronic warfare, and signal intelligence capabilities. The prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, built most of the F-22's airframe and weapons systems and conducted final assembly, while Boeing provided the wings, aft fuselage, avionics integration, and training systems.

 

The aircraft was variously designated F-22 and F/A-22 before it formally entered service in December 2005 as the F-22A. Despite its protracted development and various operational issues, USAF officials consider the F-22 a critical component of the service's tactical air power. Its combination of stealth, aerodynamic performance, and situational awareness enable unprecedented air combat capabilities.

 

Service officials had originally planned to buy a total of 750 ATFs. In 2009, the program was cut to 187 operational production aircraft due to high costs, a lack of clear air-to-air missions due to delays in Russian and Chinese fighter programs, a ban on exports, and development of the more versatile F-35. The last F-22 was delivered in 2012.

  

Development

 

Origins

 

In 1981, the U.S. Air Force identified a requirement for an Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) to replace the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon. Code named "Senior Sky", this air-superiority fighter program was influenced by emerging worldwide threats, including new developments in Soviet air defense systems and the proliferation of the Su-27 "Flanker"- and MiG-29 "Fulcrum"-class of fighter aircraft. It would take advantage of the new technologies in fighter design on the horizon, including composite materials, lightweight alloys, advanced flight control systems, more powerful propulsion systems, and most importantly, stealth technology. In 1983, the ATF concept development team became the System Program Office (SPO) and managed the program at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The demonstration and validation (Dem/Val) request for proposals (RFP) was issued in September 1985, with requirements placing strong emphasis on stealth and supercruise. Of the seven bidding companies, Lockheed and Northrop were selected on 31 October 1986. Lockheed teamed with Boeing and General Dynamics while Northrop teamed with McDonnell Douglas, and the two contractor teams undertook a 50-month Dem/Val phase, culminating in the flight test of two technology demonstrator prototypes, the YF-22 and the YF-23, respectively.

 

Dem/Val was focused on risk reduction and technology development plans over specific aircraft designs. Contractors made extensive use of analytical and empirical methods, including computational fluid dynamics, wind-tunnel testing, and radar cross-section calculations and pole testing; the Lockheed team would conduct nearly 18,000 hours of wind-tunnel testing. Avionics development was marked by extensive testing and prototyping and supported by ground and flying laboratories. During Dem/Val, the SPO used the results of performance and cost trade studies conducted by contractor teams to adjust ATF requirements and delete ones that were significant weight and cost drivers while having marginal value. The short takeoff and landing (STOL) requirement was relaxed in order to delete thrust-reversers, saving substantial weight. As avionics was a major cost driver, side-looking radars were deleted, and the dedicated infra-red search and track (IRST) system was downgraded from multi-color to single color and then deleted as well. However, space and cooling provisions were retained to allow for future addition of these components. The ejection seat requirement was downgraded from a fresh design to the existing McDonnell Douglas ACES II. Despite efforts by the contractor teams to rein in weight, the takeoff gross weight estimate was increased from 50,000 lb (22,700 kg) to 60,000 lb (27,200 kg), resulting in engine thrust requirement increasing from 30,000 lbf (133 kN) to 35,000 lbf (156 kN) class.

 

Each team produced two prototype air vehicles for Dem/Val, one for each of the two engine options. The YF-22 had its maiden flight on 29 September 1990 and in flight tests achieved up to Mach 1.58 in supercruise. After the Dem/Val flight test of the prototypes, on 23 April 1991, Secretary of the USAF Donald Rice announced the Lockheed team as the winner of the ATF competition. The YF-23 design was considered stealthier and faster, while the YF-22, with its thrust vectoring nozzles, was more maneuverable as well as less expensive and risky. The aviation press speculated that the Lockheed team's design was also more adaptable to the U.S. Navy's Navalized Advanced Tactical Fighter (NATF), but by 1992, the Navy had abandoned NATF.

  

Production and procurement

 

As the program moved to full-scale development, or the Engineering & Manufacturing Development (EMD) stage, the production version had notable differences from the YF-22, despite having a broadly similar shape. The swept-back angle of the leading edge was decreased from 48° to 42°, while the vertical stabilizers were shifted rearward and decreased in area by 20%. To improve pilot visibility, the canopy was moved forward 7 inches (18 cm), and the engine intakes moved rearward 14 inches (36 cm). The shapes of the wing and stabilator trailing edges were refined to improve aerodynamics, strength, and stealth characteristics. Increasing weight during development caused slight reductions in range and maneuver performance.

 

Prime contractor Lockheed Martin Aeronautics manufactured the majority of the airframe and performed final assembly at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia; program partner Boeing Defense, Space & Security provided additional airframe components as well as avionics integration and training systems. The first F-22, an EMD aircraft with tail number 4001, was unveiled at Marietta, Georgia, on 9 April 1997, and first flew on 7 September 1997. Production, with the first lot awarded in September 2000, supported over 1,000 subcontractors and suppliers from 46 states and up to 95,000 jobs, and spanned 15 years at a peak rate of roughly two airplanes per month. In 2006, the F-22 development team won the Collier Trophy, American aviation's most prestigious award. Due to the aircraft's advanced nature, contractors have been targeted by cyberattacks and technology theft.

 

The USAF originally envisioned ordering 750 ATFs at a total program cost of $44.3 billion and procurement cost of $26.2 billion in fiscal year (FY) 1985 dollars, with production beginning in 1994. The 1990 Major Aircraft Review led by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney reduced this to 648 aircraft beginning in 1996. By 1997, funding instability had further cut the total to 339, which was again reduced to 277 by 2003. In 2004, the Department of Defense (DoD) further reduced this to 183 operational aircraft, despite the USAF's preference for 381. A multi-year procurement plan was implemented in 2006 to save $15 billion, with total program cost projected to be $62 billion for 183 F-22s distributed to seven combat squadrons. In 2008, Congress passed a defense spending bill that raised the total orders for production aircraft to 187.

 

The first two F-22s built were EMD aircraft in the Block 1.0 configuration for initial flight testing, while the third was a Block 2.0 aircraft built to represent the internal structure of production airframes and enabled it to test full flight loads. Six more EMD aircraft were built in the Block 10 configuration for development and upgrade testing, with the last two considered essentially production quality jets. Production for operational squadrons consisted of 37 Block 20 training aircraft and 149 Block 30/35 combat aircraft; one of the Block 35 aircraft is dedicated to flight sciences at Edwards Air Force Base.

 

The numerous new technologies in the F-22 resulted in substantial cost overruns and delays. Many capabilities were deferred to post-service upgrades, reducing the initial cost but increasing total program cost. As production wound down in 2011, the total program cost is estimated to be about $67.3 billion, with $32.4 billion spent on Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) and $34.9 billion on procurement and military construction (MILCON) in then year dollars. The incremental cost for an additional F-22 was estimated at about $138 million in 2009.

 

Ban on exports

 

The F-22 cannot be exported under US federal law to protect its stealth technology and other high-tech features. Customers for U.S. fighters are acquiring earlier designs such as the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon or the newer F-35 Lightning II, which contains technology from the F-22 but was designed to be cheaper, more flexible, and available for export. In September 2006, Congress upheld the ban on foreign F-22 sales. Despite the ban, the 2010 defense authorization bill included provisions requiring the DoD to prepare a report on the costs and feasibility for an F-22 export variant, and another report on the effect of F-22 export sales on U.S. aerospace industry.

 

Some Australian politicians and defense commentators proposed that Australia should attempt to purchase F-22s instead of the planned F-35s, citing the F-22's known capabilities and F-35's delays and developmental uncertainties. However, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) determined that the F-22 was unable to perform the F-35's strike and close air support roles. The Japanese government also showed interest in the F-22 for its Replacement-Fighter program. The Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) would reportedly require fewer fighters for its mission if it obtained the F-22, thus reducing engineering and staffing costs. However, in 2009 it was reported that acquiring the F-22 would require increases to the Japanese government's defense budget beyond the historical 1 percent of its GDP. With the end of F-22 production, Japan chose the F-35 in December 2011. Israel also expressed interest, but eventually chose the F-35 because of the F-22's price and unavailability.

 

Production termination

 

Throughout the 2000s, the need for F-22s was debated, due to rising costs and the lack of relevant adversaries. In 2006, Comptroller General of the United States David Walker found that "the DoD has not demonstrated the need" for more investment in the F-22, and further opposition to the program was expressed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon R. England, Senator John McCain, and Chairman of U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services Senator John Warner. The F-22 program lost influential supporters in 2008 after the forced resignations of Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force General T. Michael Moseley.

 

In November 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the F-22 was not relevant in post-Cold War conflicts such as irregular warfare operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in April 2009, under the new Obama Administration, he called for ending production in FY2011, leaving the USAF with 187 production aircraft. In July, General James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated to the Senate Committee on Armed Services his reasons for supporting termination of F-22 production. They included shifting resources to the multirole F-35 to allow proliferation of fifth-generation fighters for three service branches and preserving the F/A-18 production line to maintain the military's electronic warfare (EW) capabilities in the Boeing EA-18G Growler.[60] Issues with the F-22's reliability and availability also raised concerns. After President Obama threatened to veto further production, the Senate voted in July 2009 in favor of ending production and the House subsequently agreed to abide by the 187 production aircraft cap. Gates stated that the decision was taken in light of the F-35's capabilities, and in 2010, he set the F-22 requirement to 187 aircraft by lowering the number of major regional conflict preparations from two to one.

 

In 2010, USAF initiated a study to determine the costs of retaining F-22 tooling for a future Service Life Extension Program (SLEP).[66] A RAND Corporation paper from this study estimated that restarting production and building an additional 75 F-22s would cost $17 billion, resulting in $227 million per aircraft, or $54 million higher than the flyaway cost. Lockheed Martin stated that restarting the production line itself would cost about $200 million. Production tooling and associated documentation were subsequently stored at the Sierra Army Depot, allowing the retained tooling to support the fleet life cycle. There were reports that attempts to retrieve this tooling found empty containers, but a subsequent audit found that the tooling was stored as expected.

 

Russian and Chinese fighter developments have fueled concern, and in 2009, General John Corley, head of Air Combat Command, stated that a fleet of 187 F-22s would be inadequate, but Secretary Gates dismissed General Corley's concern. In 2011, Gates explained that Chinese fifth-generation fighter developments had been accounted for when the number of F-22s was set, and that the U.S. would have a considerable advantage in stealth aircraft in 2025, even with F-35 delays. In December 2011, the 195th and final F-22 was completed out of 8 test EMD and 187 operational aircraft produced; the aircraft was delivered to the USAF on 2 May 2012.

 

In April 2016, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee proposed legislation that would direct the Air Force to conduct a cost study and assessment associated with resuming production of the F-22. Since the production halt directed in 2009 by then Defense Secretary Gates, lawmakers and the Pentagon noted that air warfare systems of Russia and China were catching up to those of the U.S. Lockheed Martin has proposed upgrading the Block 20 training aircraft into combat-coded Block 30/35 versions as a way to increase numbers available for deployment. On 9 June 2017, the Air Force submitted their report to Congress stating they had no plans to restart the F-22 production line due to economic and operational issues; it estimated it would cost approximately $50 billion to procure 194 additional F-22s at a cost of $206–$216 million per aircraft, including approximately $9.9 billion for non-recurring start-up costs and $40.4 billion for aircraft procurement costs.

 

Upgrades

 

The first aircraft with combat-capable Block 3.0 software flew in 2001. Increment 2, the first upgrade program, was implemented in 2005 for Block 20 aircraft onward and enabled the employment of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM). Certification of the improved AN/APG-77(V)1 radar was completed in March 2007, and airframes from production Lot 5 onward are fitted with this radar, which incorporates air-to-ground modes. Increment 3.1 for Block 30 aircraft onward provided improved ground-attack capability through synthetic aperture radar mapping and radio emitter direction finding, electronic attack and Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) integration; testing began in 2009 and the first upgraded aircraft was delivered in 2011. To address oxygen deprivation issues, F-22s were fitted with an automatic backup oxygen system (ABOS) and modified life support system starting in 2012.

 

Increment 3.2 for Block 35 aircraft is a two-part upgrade process; 3.2A focuses on electronic warfare, communications and identification, while 3.2B includes geolocation improvements and a new stores management system to show the correct symbols for the AIM-9X and AIM-120D.[83][84] To enable two-way communication with other platforms, the F-22 can use the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) as a gateway. The planned Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL) integration was cut due to development delays and lack of proliferation among USAF platforms. The F-22 fleet is planned to start receiving Increment 3.2B as well as a software upgrade for cryptography capabilities and avionics stability in May 2019. A Multifunctional Information Distribution System-Joint (MIDS-J) radio that replaces the current Link-16 receive-only box is expected to be operational by 2020. Subsequent upgrades are also focusing on having an open architecture to enable faster future enhancements.

 

In 2024, funding is projected to begin for the F-22 mid-life upgrade (MLU), which is expected to include new sensors and antennas, hardware refresh, cockpit improvements, and a helmet mounted display and cuing system. Other enhancements being developed include IRST functionality for the AN/AAR-56 Missile Launch Detector (MLD) and more durable stealth coating based on the F-35's.

 

The F-22 was designed for a service life of 8,000 flight hours, with a $350 million "structures retrofit program". Investigations are being made for upgrades to extend their useful lives further. In the long term, the F-22 is expected to be superseded by a sixth-generation jet fighter to be fielded in the 2030s.

  

Design

 

Overview

 

The F-22 Raptor is a fifth-generation fighter that is considered fourth generation in stealth aircraft technology by the USAF.[91] It is the first operational aircraft to combine supercruise, supermaneuverability, stealth, and sensor fusion in a single weapons platform. The F-22 has four empennage surfaces, retractable tricycle landing gear, and clipped delta wings with reverse trailing edge sweep and leading edge extensions running to the upper outboard corner of the inlets. Flight control surfaces include leading-edge flaps, flaperons, ailerons, rudders on the canted vertical stabilizers, and all-moving horizontal tails (stabilators); for speed brake function, the ailerons deflect up, flaperons down, and rudders outwards to increase drag.

 

The aircraft's dual Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 augmented turbofan engines are closely spaced and incorporate pitch-axis thrust vectoring nozzles with a range of ±20 degrees; each engine has maximum thrust in the 35,000 lbf (156 kN) class. The F-22's thrust-to-weight ratio at typical combat weight is nearly at unity in maximum military power and 1.25 in full afterburner. Maximum speed without external stores is approximately Mach 1.8 at military power and greater than Mach 2 with afterburners.

 

The F-22's high cruise speed and operating altitude over prior fighters improve the effectiveness of its sensors and weapon systems, and increase survivability against ground defenses such as surface-to-air missiles. The aircraft is among only a few that can supercruise, or sustain supersonic flight without using fuel-inefficient afterburners; it can intercept targets which subsonic aircraft would lack the speed to pursue and an afterburner-dependent aircraft would lack the fuel to reach. The F-22's thrust and aerodynamics enable regular combat speeds of Mach 1.5 at 50,000 feet (15,000 m). The use of internal weapons bays permits the aircraft to maintain comparatively higher performance over most other combat-configured fighters due to a lack of aerodynamic drag from external stores. The aircraft's structure contains a significant amount of high-strength materials to withstand stress and heat of sustained supersonic flight. Respectively, titanium alloys and composites comprise 39% and 24% of the structural weight.

 

The F-22's aerodynamics, relaxed stability, and powerful thrust-vectoring engines give it excellent maneuverability and energy potential across its flight envelope. The airplane has excellent high alpha (angle of attack) characteristics, capable of flying at trimmed alpha of over 60° while maintaining roll control and performing maneuvers such as the Herbst maneuver (J-turn) and Pugachev's Cobra. The flight control system and full-authority digital engine control (FADEC) make the aircraft highly departure resistant and controllable, thus giving the pilot carefree handling.

  

Stealth

 

The F-22 was designed to be highly difficult to detect and track by radar. Measures to reduce radar cross-section (RCS) include airframe shaping such as alignment of edges, fixed-geometry serpentine inlets and curved vanes that prevent line-of-sight of the engine faces and turbines from any exterior view, use of radar-absorbent material (RAM), and attention to detail such as hinges and pilot helmets that could provide a radar return. The F-22 was also designed to have decreased radio emissions, infrared signature and acoustic signature as well as reduced visibility to the naked eye. The aircraft's flat thrust-vectoring nozzles reduce infrared emissions of the exhaust plume to mitigate the threat of infrared homing ("heat seeking") surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles. Additional measures to reduce the infrared signature include special topcoat and active cooling of leading edges to manage the heat buildup from supersonic flight.

 

Compared to previous stealth designs like the F-117, the F-22 is less reliant on RAM, which are maintenance-intensive and susceptible to adverse weather conditions. Unlike the B-2, which requires climate-controlled hangars, the F-22 can undergo repairs on the flight line or in a normal hangar. The F-22 has a Signature Assessment System which delivers warnings when the radar signature is degraded and necessitates repair. While the F-22's exact RCS is classified, in 2009 Lockheed Martin released information indicating that from certain angles the aircraft has an RCS of 0.0001 m² or −40 dBsm – equivalent to the radar reflection of a "steel marble". Effectively maintaining the stealth features can decrease the F-22's mission capable rate to 62–70%.

 

The effectiveness of the stealth characteristics is difficult to gauge. The RCS value is a restrictive measurement of the aircraft's frontal or side area from the perspective of a static radar. When an aircraft maneuvers it exposes a completely different set of angles and surface area, potentially increasing radar observability. Furthermore, the F-22's stealth contouring and radar absorbent materials are chiefly effective against high-frequency radars, usually found on other aircraft. The effects of Rayleigh scattering and resonance mean that low-frequency radars such as weather radars and early-warning radars are more likely to detect the F-22 due to its physical size. However, such radars are also conspicuous, susceptible to clutter, and have low precision. Additionally, while faint or fleeting radar contacts make defenders aware that a stealth aircraft is present, reliably vectoring interception to attack the aircraft is much more challenging. According to the USAF an F-22 surprised an Iranian F-4 Phantom II that was attempting to intercept an American UAV, despite Iran's assertion of having military VHF radar coverage over the Persian Gulf.

   

The U.S. Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron 'Thunderbirds' and Lockheed Martin F-22 "Raptor" Demonstration Team fly over Lake Michigan, June 27, 2019. Since 1953, the Thunderbirds team has served as America’s premier air demonstration squadron, entrusted with the vital mission to recruit, retain and inspire past, present and future Airmen.

  

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is a fifth-generation, single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). The result of the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program, the aircraft was designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, but also has ground attack, electronic warfare, and signal intelligence capabilities. The prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, built most of the F-22's airframe and weapons systems and conducted final assembly, while Boeing provided the wings, aft fuselage, avionics integration, and training systems.

 

The aircraft was variously designated F-22 and F/A-22 before it formally entered service in December 2005 as the F-22A. Despite its protracted development and various operational issues, USAF officials consider the F-22 a critical component of the service's tactical air power. Its combination of stealth, aerodynamic performance, and situational awareness enable unprecedented air combat capabilities.

 

Service officials had originally planned to buy a total of 750 ATFs. In 2009, the program was cut to 187 operational production aircraft due to high costs, a lack of clear air-to-air missions due to delays in Russian and Chinese fighter programs, a ban on exports, and development of the more versatile F-35. The last F-22 was delivered in 2012.

  

Development

 

Origins

 

In 1981, the U.S. Air Force identified a requirement for an Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) to replace the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon. Code named "Senior Sky", this air-superiority fighter program was influenced by emerging worldwide threats, including new developments in Soviet air defense systems and the proliferation of the Su-27 "Flanker"- and MiG-29 "Fulcrum"-class of fighter aircraft. It would take advantage of the new technologies in fighter design on the horizon, including composite materials, lightweight alloys, advanced flight control systems, more powerful propulsion systems, and most importantly, stealth technology. In 1983, the ATF concept development team became the System Program Office (SPO) and managed the program at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The demonstration and validation (Dem/Val) request for proposals (RFP) was issued in September 1985, with requirements placing strong emphasis on stealth and supercruise. Of the seven bidding companies, Lockheed and Northrop were selected on 31 October 1986. Lockheed teamed with Boeing and General Dynamics while Northrop teamed with McDonnell Douglas, and the two contractor teams undertook a 50-month Dem/Val phase, culminating in the flight test of two technology demonstrator prototypes, the YF-22 and the YF-23, respectively.

 

Dem/Val was focused on risk reduction and technology development plans over specific aircraft designs. Contractors made extensive use of analytical and empirical methods, including computational fluid dynamics, wind-tunnel testing, and radar cross-section calculations and pole testing; the Lockheed team would conduct nearly 18,000 hours of wind-tunnel testing. Avionics development was marked by extensive testing and prototyping and supported by ground and flying laboratories. During Dem/Val, the SPO used the results of performance and cost trade studies conducted by contractor teams to adjust ATF requirements and delete ones that were significant weight and cost drivers while having marginal value. The short takeoff and landing (STOL) requirement was relaxed in order to delete thrust-reversers, saving substantial weight. As avionics was a major cost driver, side-looking radars were deleted, and the dedicated infra-red search and track (IRST) system was downgraded from multi-color to single color and then deleted as well. However, space and cooling provisions were retained to allow for future addition of these components. The ejection seat requirement was downgraded from a fresh design to the existing McDonnell Douglas ACES II. Despite efforts by the contractor teams to rein in weight, the takeoff gross weight estimate was increased from 50,000 lb (22,700 kg) to 60,000 lb (27,200 kg), resulting in engine thrust requirement increasing from 30,000 lbf (133 kN) to 35,000 lbf (156 kN) class.

 

Each team produced two prototype air vehicles for Dem/Val, one for each of the two engine options. The YF-22 had its maiden flight on 29 September 1990 and in flight tests achieved up to Mach 1.58 in supercruise. After the Dem/Val flight test of the prototypes, on 23 April 1991, Secretary of the USAF Donald Rice announced the Lockheed team as the winner of the ATF competition. The YF-23 design was considered stealthier and faster, while the YF-22, with its thrust vectoring nozzles, was more maneuverable as well as less expensive and risky. The aviation press speculated that the Lockheed team's design was also more adaptable to the U.S. Navy's Navalized Advanced Tactical Fighter (NATF), but by 1992, the Navy had abandoned NATF.

  

Production and procurement

 

As the program moved to full-scale development, or the Engineering & Manufacturing Development (EMD) stage, the production version had notable differences from the YF-22, despite having a broadly similar shape. The swept-back angle of the leading edge was decreased from 48° to 42°, while the vertical stabilizers were shifted rearward and decreased in area by 20%. To improve pilot visibility, the canopy was moved forward 7 inches (18 cm), and the engine intakes moved rearward 14 inches (36 cm). The shapes of the wing and stabilator trailing edges were refined to improve aerodynamics, strength, and stealth characteristics. Increasing weight during development caused slight reductions in range and maneuver performance.

 

Prime contractor Lockheed Martin Aeronautics manufactured the majority of the airframe and performed final assembly at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia; program partner Boeing Defense, Space & Security provided additional airframe components as well as avionics integration and training systems. The first F-22, an EMD aircraft with tail number 4001, was unveiled at Marietta, Georgia, on 9 April 1997, and first flew on 7 September 1997. Production, with the first lot awarded in September 2000, supported over 1,000 subcontractors and suppliers from 46 states and up to 95,000 jobs, and spanned 15 years at a peak rate of roughly two airplanes per month. In 2006, the F-22 development team won the Collier Trophy, American aviation's most prestigious award. Due to the aircraft's advanced nature, contractors have been targeted by cyberattacks and technology theft.

 

The USAF originally envisioned ordering 750 ATFs at a total program cost of $44.3 billion and procurement cost of $26.2 billion in fiscal year (FY) 1985 dollars, with production beginning in 1994. The 1990 Major Aircraft Review led by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney reduced this to 648 aircraft beginning in 1996. By 1997, funding instability had further cut the total to 339, which was again reduced to 277 by 2003. In 2004, the Department of Defense (DoD) further reduced this to 183 operational aircraft, despite the USAF's preference for 381. A multi-year procurement plan was implemented in 2006 to save $15 billion, with total program cost projected to be $62 billion for 183 F-22s distributed to seven combat squadrons. In 2008, Congress passed a defense spending bill that raised the total orders for production aircraft to 187.

 

The first two F-22s built were EMD aircraft in the Block 1.0 configuration for initial flight testing, while the third was a Block 2.0 aircraft built to represent the internal structure of production airframes and enabled it to test full flight loads. Six more EMD aircraft were built in the Block 10 configuration for development and upgrade testing, with the last two considered essentially production quality jets. Production for operational squadrons consisted of 37 Block 20 training aircraft and 149 Block 30/35 combat aircraft; one of the Block 35 aircraft is dedicated to flight sciences at Edwards Air Force Base.

 

The numerous new technologies in the F-22 resulted in substantial cost overruns and delays. Many capabilities were deferred to post-service upgrades, reducing the initial cost but increasing total program cost. As production wound down in 2011, the total program cost is estimated to be about $67.3 billion, with $32.4 billion spent on Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) and $34.9 billion on procurement and military construction (MILCON) in then year dollars. The incremental cost for an additional F-22 was estimated at about $138 million in 2009.

 

Ban on exports

 

The F-22 cannot be exported under US federal law to protect its stealth technology and other high-tech features. Customers for U.S. fighters are acquiring earlier designs such as the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon or the newer F-35 Lightning II, which contains technology from the F-22 but was designed to be cheaper, more flexible, and available for export. In September 2006, Congress upheld the ban on foreign F-22 sales. Despite the ban, the 2010 defense authorization bill included provisions requiring the DoD to prepare a report on the costs and feasibility for an F-22 export variant, and another report on the effect of F-22 export sales on U.S. aerospace industry.

 

Some Australian politicians and defense commentators proposed that Australia should attempt to purchase F-22s instead of the planned F-35s, citing the F-22's known capabilities and F-35's delays and developmental uncertainties. However, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) determined that the F-22 was unable to perform the F-35's strike and close air support roles. The Japanese government also showed interest in the F-22 for its Replacement-Fighter program. The Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) would reportedly require fewer fighters for its mission if it obtained the F-22, thus reducing engineering and staffing costs. However, in 2009 it was reported that acquiring the F-22 would require increases to the Japanese government's defense budget beyond the historical 1 percent of its GDP. With the end of F-22 production, Japan chose the F-35 in December 2011. Israel also expressed interest, but eventually chose the F-35 because of the F-22's price and unavailability.

 

Production termination

 

Throughout the 2000s, the need for F-22s was debated, due to rising costs and the lack of relevant adversaries. In 2006, Comptroller General of the United States David Walker found that "the DoD has not demonstrated the need" for more investment in the F-22, and further opposition to the program was expressed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon R. England, Senator John McCain, and Chairman of U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services Senator John Warner. The F-22 program lost influential supporters in 2008 after the forced resignations of Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force General T. Michael Moseley.

 

In November 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the F-22 was not relevant in post-Cold War conflicts such as irregular warfare operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in April 2009, under the new Obama Administration, he called for ending production in FY2011, leaving the USAF with 187 production aircraft. In July, General James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated to the Senate Committee on Armed Services his reasons for supporting termination of F-22 production. They included shifting resources to the multirole F-35 to allow proliferation of fifth-generation fighters for three service branches and preserving the F/A-18 production line to maintain the military's electronic warfare (EW) capabilities in the Boeing EA-18G Growler.[60] Issues with the F-22's reliability and availability also raised concerns. After President Obama threatened to veto further production, the Senate voted in July 2009 in favor of ending production and the House subsequently agreed to abide by the 187 production aircraft cap. Gates stated that the decision was taken in light of the F-35's capabilities, and in 2010, he set the F-22 requirement to 187 aircraft by lowering the number of major regional conflict preparations from two to one.

 

In 2010, USAF initiated a study to determine the costs of retaining F-22 tooling for a future Service Life Extension Program (SLEP).[66] A RAND Corporation paper from this study estimated that restarting production and building an additional 75 F-22s would cost $17 billion, resulting in $227 million per aircraft, or $54 million higher than the flyaway cost. Lockheed Martin stated that restarting the production line itself would cost about $200 million. Production tooling and associated documentation were subsequently stored at the Sierra Army Depot, allowing the retained tooling to support the fleet life cycle. There were reports that attempts to retrieve this tooling found empty containers, but a subsequent audit found that the tooling was stored as expected.

 

Russian and Chinese fighter developments have fueled concern, and in 2009, General John Corley, head of Air Combat Command, stated that a fleet of 187 F-22s would be inadequate, but Secretary Gates dismissed General Corley's concern. In 2011, Gates explained that Chinese fifth-generation fighter developments had been accounted for when the number of F-22s was set, and that the U.S. would have a considerable advantage in stealth aircraft in 2025, even with F-35 delays. In December 2011, the 195th and final F-22 was completed out of 8 test EMD and 187 operational aircraft produced; the aircraft was delivered to the USAF on 2 May 2012.

 

In April 2016, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee proposed legislation that would direct the Air Force to conduct a cost study and assessment associated with resuming production of the F-22. Since the production halt directed in 2009 by then Defense Secretary Gates, lawmakers and the Pentagon noted that air warfare systems of Russia and China were catching up to those of the U.S. Lockheed Martin has proposed upgrading the Block 20 training aircraft into combat-coded Block 30/35 versions as a way to increase numbers available for deployment. On 9 June 2017, the Air Force submitted their report to Congress stating they had no plans to restart the F-22 production line due to economic and operational issues; it estimated it would cost approximately $50 billion to procure 194 additional F-22s at a cost of $206–$216 million per aircraft, including approximately $9.9 billion for non-recurring start-up costs and $40.4 billion for aircraft procurement costs.

 

Upgrades

 

The first aircraft with combat-capable Block 3.0 software flew in 2001. Increment 2, the first upgrade program, was implemented in 2005 for Block 20 aircraft onward and enabled the employment of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM). Certification of the improved AN/APG-77(V)1 radar was completed in March 2007, and airframes from production Lot 5 onward are fitted with this radar, which incorporates air-to-ground modes. Increment 3.1 for Block 30 aircraft onward provided improved ground-attack capability through synthetic aperture radar mapping and radio emitter direction finding, electronic attack and Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) integration; testing began in 2009 and the first upgraded aircraft was delivered in 2011. To address oxygen deprivation issues, F-22s were fitted with an automatic backup oxygen system (ABOS) and modified life support system starting in 2012.

 

Increment 3.2 for Block 35 aircraft is a two-part upgrade process; 3.2A focuses on electronic warfare, communications and identification, while 3.2B includes geolocation improvements and a new stores management system to show the correct symbols for the AIM-9X and AIM-120D.[83][84] To enable two-way communication with other platforms, the F-22 can use the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) as a gateway. The planned Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL) integration was cut due to development delays and lack of proliferation among USAF platforms. The F-22 fleet is planned to start receiving Increment 3.2B as well as a software upgrade for cryptography capabilities and avionics stability in May 2019. A Multifunctional Information Distribution System-Joint (MIDS-J) radio that replaces the current Link-16 receive-only box is expected to be operational by 2020. Subsequent upgrades are also focusing on having an open architecture to enable faster future enhancements.

 

In 2024, funding is projected to begin for the F-22 mid-life upgrade (MLU), which is expected to include new sensors and antennas, hardware refresh, cockpit improvements, and a helmet mounted display and cuing system. Other enhancements being developed include IRST functionality for the AN/AAR-56 Missile Launch Detector (MLD) and more durable stealth coating based on the F-35's.

 

The F-22 was designed for a service life of 8,000 flight hours, with a $350 million "structures retrofit program". Investigations are being made for upgrades to extend their useful lives further. In the long term, the F-22 is expected to be superseded by a sixth-generation jet fighter to be fielded in the 2030s.

  

Design

 

Overview

 

The F-22 Raptor is a fifth-generation fighter that is considered fourth generation in stealth aircraft technology by the USAF.[91] It is the first operational aircraft to combine supercruise, supermaneuverability, stealth, and sensor fusion in a single weapons platform. The F-22 has four empennage surfaces, retractable tricycle landing gear, and clipped delta wings with reverse trailing edge sweep and leading edge extensions running to the upper outboard corner of the inlets. Flight control surfaces include leading-edge flaps, flaperons, ailerons, rudders on the canted vertical stabilizers, and all-moving horizontal tails (stabilators); for speed brake function, the ailerons deflect up, flaperons down, and rudders outwards to increase drag.

 

The aircraft's dual Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 augmented turbofan engines are closely spaced and incorporate pitch-axis thrust vectoring nozzles with a range of ±20 degrees; each engine has maximum thrust in the 35,000 lbf (156 kN) class. The F-22's thrust-to-weight ratio at typical combat weight is nearly at unity in maximum military power and 1.25 in full afterburner. Maximum speed without external stores is approximately Mach 1.8 at military power and greater than Mach 2 with afterburners.

 

The F-22's high cruise speed and operating altitude over prior fighters improve the effectiveness of its sensors and weapon systems, and increase survivability against ground defenses such as surface-to-air missiles. The aircraft is among only a few that can supercruise, or sustain supersonic flight without using fuel-inefficient afterburners; it can intercept targets which subsonic aircraft would lack the speed to pursue and an afterburner-dependent aircraft would lack the fuel to reach. The F-22's thrust and aerodynamics enable regular combat speeds of Mach 1.5 at 50,000 feet (15,000 m). The use of internal weapons bays permits the aircraft to maintain comparatively higher performance over most other combat-configured fighters due to a lack of aerodynamic drag from external stores. The aircraft's structure contains a significant amount of high-strength materials to withstand stress and heat of sustained supersonic flight. Respectively, titanium alloys and composites comprise 39% and 24% of the structural weight.

 

The F-22's aerodynamics, relaxed stability, and powerful thrust-vectoring engines give it excellent maneuverability and energy potential across its flight envelope. The airplane has excellent high alpha (angle of attack) characteristics, capable of flying at trimmed alpha of over 60° while maintaining roll control and performing maneuvers such as the Herbst maneuver (J-turn) and Pugachev's Cobra. The flight control system and full-authority digital engine control (FADEC) make the aircraft highly departure resistant and controllable, thus giving the pilot carefree handling.

  

Stealth

 

The F-22 was designed to be highly difficult to detect and track by radar. Measures to reduce radar cross-section (RCS) include airframe shaping such as alignment of edges, fixed-geometry serpentine inlets and curved vanes that prevent line-of-sight of the engine faces and turbines from any exterior view, use of radar-absorbent material (RAM), and attention to detail such as hinges and pilot helmets that could provide a radar return. The F-22 was also designed to have decreased radio emissions, infrared signature and acoustic signature as well as reduced visibility to the naked eye. The aircraft's flat thrust-vectoring nozzles reduce infrared emissions of the exhaust plume to mitigate the threat of infrared homing ("heat seeking") surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles. Additional measures to reduce the infrared signature include special topcoat and active cooling of leading edges to manage the heat buildup from supersonic flight.

 

Compared to previous stealth designs like the F-117, the F-22 is less reliant on RAM, which are maintenance-intensive and susceptible to adverse weather conditions. Unlike the B-2, which requires climate-controlled hangars, the F-22 can undergo repairs on the flight line or in a normal hangar. The F-22 has a Signature Assessment System which delivers warnings when the radar signature is degraded and necessitates repair. While the F-22's exact RCS is classified, in 2009 Lockheed Martin released information indicating that from certain angles the aircraft has an RCS of 0.0001 m² or −40 dBsm – equivalent to the radar reflection of a "steel marble". Effectively maintaining the stealth features can decrease the F-22's mission capable rate to 62–70%.

 

The effectiveness of the stealth characteristics is difficult to gauge. The RCS value is a restrictive measurement of the aircraft's frontal or side area from the perspective of a static radar. When an aircraft maneuvers it exposes a completely different set of angles and surface area, potentially increasing radar observability. Furthermore, the F-22's stealth contouring and radar absorbent materials are chiefly effective against high-frequency radars, usually found on other aircraft. The effects of Rayleigh scattering and resonance mean that low-frequency radars such as weather radars and early-warning radars are more likely to detect the F-22 due to its physical size. However, such radars are also conspicuous, susceptible to clutter, and have low precision. Additionally, while faint or fleeting radar contacts make defenders aware that a stealth aircraft is present, reliably vectoring interception to attack the aircraft is much more challenging. According to the USAF an F-22 surprised an Iranian F-4 Phantom II that was attempting to intercept an American UAV, despite Iran's assertion of having military VHF radar coverage over the Persian Gulf.

Hidden messages from the past in the alleys of Wheeling, West Virginia.

Bletchley Park és un dels llocs més fascinants de la història del segle XX. Aquí, durant la II Guerra Mundial i buscant la manera de desxifrar els codis militars alemanys, en sorgí la informàtica i els ordinadors.

 

Aquesta és la mansió victoriana original, construida al s. XIX, a partir d'on començà a creixer el centre de criptologia el 1939.

 

ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park

 

========================================================

 

Bletchley Park is one of the most amazing historical places related to the XX Century in general and to WWII in particular. Here, during the colossal effort to crack the german military codes, computers and computing science were born (or at least had their main intial development).

 

This is the original XIX Century mansion.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park

 

www.bletchleypark.org/

www.bletchleypark.org/content/museum.rhtm

 

For an impresive virtual visit, take a look to these videos:

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmMFp2FQPsY

SEC 280 Final Exam

  

Purchase here

  

chosecourses.com/index.php?route=product/category&pat...

  

Product Description

  

Product Description

SEC 280 Final Exam

(TCO 2) What is XKMS?

Key Management Specification, which defines services to manage PKI operations within the Extensible Markup Language (XML) environment

An XML standard for e-mail encryption

An XML standard that is used for wireless data exchange

A primary XML standard that is for application development

(TCO 2) All of the following are techniques used by a social engineer EXCEPT for which one?

An attacker replaces a blank deposit slip in a bank lobby with one containing his own account number

An attacker calls up the IT department posing as an employee and requests a password reset

An attacker runs a brute-force attack on a password

An attacker sends a forged e-mail with a link to a bogus website that has been set to obtain personal information

(TCO 2) Attackers need a certain amount of information before launching their attack. One common place to find information is to go through the trash of the target to find information that could be useful to the attacker. This process of going through a target’s trash is known in the community as _____

Trash rummaging

Garbage surfing

Piggy diving

Dumpster diving

(TCO 2) What are the SSL and TLS used for?

A means of securing application programs on the system

To secure communication over the Internet

A method to change from one form of PKI infrastructure to another

A secure way to reduce the amount of SPAM a system receives

(TCO 2) What are the security risks of installing games on an organization’s system?

There are no significant risks

Users can’t always be sure where the software came from and it may have hidden software inside of it.

The users may play during work hours instead of during breaks

The games may take up too much memory on the computer and slow down processing, making it difficult to work

(TCO 2) What is the ISO 17799?

A standard for creating and implementing security policies

A standard for international encryption of e-mail

A document used to develop physical security for a building

A document describing the details of wireless encryption

(TCO 3) A(n) _____ is a network typically smaller in terms of size and geographic coverage, and consists of two or more connected devices. Home or office networks are typically classified as this type of network

Local-area network

Office-area network

Wide-area network

(TCO 3) What is the main difference between TCP and UDP packets?

UDP packets are a more widely used protocol

TCP packets are smaller and thus more efficient to use

TCP packets are connection oriented, whereas UPD packets are connectionless

UDP is considered to be more reliable because it performs error checking

Internal-area network

(TCO 3) Unfortunately, hackers abuse the ICMP protocol by using it to _____.

Send Internet worms

Launch denial-of-service (DoS) attacks

Steal passwords and credit card numbers

Send spam

(TCO 3) Which transport layer protocol is connectionless?

UDP

TCP

IP

ICMP

(TCO 3) Which of the following is a benefit provided by Network Address Translation (NAT)?

Compensates for the lack of IP addresses

Allows devices using two different protocols to communicate

Creates a DMZ

Translates MAC addresses to IP addresses

(TCO 3) Which transport layer protocol is connection oriented?

UDP

RCP

IS

ICMP

(TCO 3) Which of the following is an example of a MAC address?

00:07:H9:c8:ff:00

00:39:c8:ff:00

00:07:e9:c8:ff:00

00:07:59:c8:ff:00:e8

(TCO 4) All of the following statements sum up the characteristics and requirements of proper private key use EXCEPT which one?

The key should be stored securely

The key should be shared only with others whom you trust

Authentication should be required before the key can be used

The key should be transported securely

(TCO 4) It is easier to implement, back up, and recover keys in a _____.

Centralized infrastructure

Decentralized infrastructure

Hybrid infrastructure

Peer-to-peer infrastructure

(TCO 4) When a message sent by a user is digitally signed with a private key, the person will not be able to deny sending the message. This application of encryption is an example of _____.

Authentication

Nonrepudiation

Confidentiality

Auditing

(TCO 4) Outsourced CAs are different from public CAs in what way?

Outsourced services can be used by hundreds of companies

Outsourced services provide dedicated services and equipment to individual companies

Outsourced services do not maintain specific servers and infrastructures for individual companies

Outsourced services are different in name only. They are essentially the same thing

(TCO 4) Cryptographic algorithms are used for all of the following EXCEPT _____.

Confidentiality

Integrity

Availability

Authentication

(TCO 6) A hub operates at which of the following?

Layer 1, the physical layer

Layer 2, the data-link layer

Layer 2, the MAC layer

Layer 3, the network layer

(TCO 6) Alice sends an e-mail that she encrypts with a shared key, which only she and Bob have. Upon receipt, Bob decrypts the e-mail and reads it. This application of encryption is an example of _____.

Confidentiality

Integrity

Authentication

Nonrepudiation

(TCO 6) The following are steps in securing a workstation EXCEPT _____.

Install NetBIOS and IPX

Install antivirus

Remove unnecessary software

Disable unnecessary user accounts

(TCO 8) Which of the following is a characteristic of the Patriot Act?

Extends the tap-and-trace provisions of existing wiretap statutes to the Internet, and mandates certain technological modifications at ISPs to facilitate electronic wiretaps on the Internet

A major piece of legislation affecting the financial industry, and also one with significant privacy provisions for individuals

Makes it a violation of federal law to knowingly use another’s identity

Implements the principle that a signature, contract, or other record may not be deleted

Denies legal effect, validity, or enforceability solely because it is electronic form

(TCO 8) The Wassenaar Arrangement can be described as which of the following?

An international arrangement on export controls for conventional arms as well as dual-use goods and technologies

An international arrangement on import controls

A rule governing import of encryption in the United States

A rule governing export of encryption in the United States

(TCO 8) What is the Convention on Cybercrime?

A convention of black hats who trade hacking secrets

The first international treaty on crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks

A convention of white hats who trade hacker prevention knowledge

A treaty regulating international conventions

(TCO 8) The electronic signatures in the Global and National Commerce Act _____.

Implement the principle that a signature, contract, or other record may not be denied legal effect, validity, or enforceability solely because it is electronic form

Address a myriad of legal privacy issues resulting from the increased use of computers and other technology specific to telecommunications

Make it a violation of federal law to knowingly use another’s identity

Are a major piece of legislation affecting the financial industry, and contains significant privacy provisions for individuals

(TCO 2) Give an example of a hoax and how it might actually be destructive

(TCO 2) What are the various ways a backup can be conducted and stored?

Backups should include the organization’s critical data, and…

(TCO 2) List at least five types of disasters that can damage or destroy the information of an organization

(TCO 2) List the four ways backups are conducted and stored.

Full back up, differential backup,…

(TCO 2) List at least five types of disasters that can damage or destroy the information of an organization.

Flood, chemical spill…

(TCO 2) Your boss wants you to give him some suggestions for a policy stating what the individual user responsibilities for information security should be. Create a bulleted list of those responsibilities.

Do not divulge sensitive information to individuals…

(TCO 3) What is the difference between TCP and UDP?

UDP is known as a connectionless protocol, as it has very few…

(TCO 3) List three kinds of information contained in an IP packet header

A unique identifier, distinguishing this packet from other packets…

(TCO 4) What are the laws that govern encryption and digital rights management?

Encryption technology is used to protect digital…

(TCO 5) Describe the laws that govern digital signatures

Digital signatures have the same…

(TCO 6) What are some of the security issues associated with web applications and plug-ins?

Web browsers have mechanisms to enable…

(TCO 6) What are the four common methods for connecting equipment at the physical layer?

Coaxial cable, twisted-pair…

(TCO 6) Describe the functioning of the SSL/TLS suite

SSL and TLS use a combination of symmetric and…

(TCO 6) Explain a simple way to combat boot disks

Disable them or… them in the…

(TCO 7) What are some ethical issues associated with information security?

Ethics is the social-moral environment in which a person makes…

(TCO 9) What are password and domain password policies?

Password complexity policies are designed to deter brute force attacks by increasing the number of possible passwords…

 

Michele Reilly is a scientist, an artist, and a systems thinker whose work resists easy classification. She trained in architecture and art at Cooper Union, where she began building intelligent machines and quickly became fascinated by the logic behind them. That curiosity drew her into mathematics, cryptography, macroeconomics, and eventually quantum physics. Her path has been shaped less by credentials than by the depth of her questions.

 

At MIT, where she teaches in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Michele works at the intersection of computation and the structure of spacetime. She explores how information flows through the universe, drawing from Claude Shannon’s foundational theories and extending them into the quantum realm. Her research is ambitious, but it is rooted in careful thinking. She is not interested in speculation for its own sake. She wants to know what can be built, what can be measured, and what will last.

 

In 2016, she co-founded Turing, a quantum technology startup focused on building portable quantum memories and tools for long-distance quantum communication. She works closely with physicist Seth Lloyd on designing the scalable, robust systems needed to move quantum computing from theory into practice. The work is intricate and deliberate, building slowly toward a future that she sees as both beautiful and unfamiliar.

 

Michele is also a storyteller. Her science fiction series Steeplechase has received awards at Cannes and other international festivals. It reflects her belief that narrative and science are not separate pursuits, but parallel ways of exploring the unknown. In her teaching, she brings these strands together, guiding students through exercises that combine quantum theory, creative writing, and world-building. One of her courses, supported by MIT’s Center for Art, Science and Technology, invites students to imagine speculative futures grounded in scientific inquiry.

 

On her arm is a tattoo of Alan Turing. It is not ornamental. It is a quiet tribute to a thinker whose life and work continue to shape her own. Turing’s dedication to truth, structure, and the ethical weight of technology is a constant presence in her thinking. She carries it with her, quite literally.

 

The portrait above was made at The Interval at the Long Now Foundation in San Francisco. Michele is seated beside a polished table that reflects her image. Behind her stands the Orrery, a planetary model designed to keep time for ten thousand years. The setting reflects the spirit of her work. She is grounded in the present but always thinking forward, asking how we might live in ways that honor complexity, care, and continuity. She does not speak often about legacy. She speaks about attention, about precision, and about the discipline of staying with difficult questions until they begin to yield something real.

Golden hour inside the Kreyenhagen Crypt, Located on Millionaire's Row in the Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland, CA. The Kreyenhagens were German immigrants who ended up becoming wealthy landowners in the Central Valley.

This is the core of a new quantum computer attached to Leiden Cryogenics dilution fridge, ready to begin a cool down to 0.005 degrees above absolute zero… about 500x colder than the coldest place in remote outer space..

 

For those who missed the earlier puzzle, the Canadians at D-Wave Systems plan to unveil it on Feb 13...

 

This quantum computer employs the resources of 65,536 parallel universes to compute answers in a fundamentally new way.

 

And this is just the beginning. There appears to be a Moore’s Law-like doubling in the number of solid state entangled qubits over time. It is early still, like when Moore made his first observation in 1965.

 

I first became interested in quantum computing when I read Oxford Professor David Deutsch’s Fabric of Reality: "quantum computers can efficiently render every physically possible quantum environment, even when vast numbers of universes are interacting. Quantum computers can also efficiently solve certain mathematical problems, such as factorization, which are classically intractable, and can implement types of cryptography which are classically impossible. Quantum computation is a qualitatively new way of harnessing nature." (p.221)

 

Or from my first blog on the subject: “Quantum computers have the potential to solve problems that would take a classical computer longer than the age of the universe.”

The Crypto Renaissance is today at www.mobilecoin.com

 

P.S. our fireside chat is now online here.

 

I'll cover some Old Crusty Crypto: 1994 saw the first crypto payment on the internet. Long before smart contracts or NFT vernacular, I wrote an article on the greater possibilities, in 1994: “digital cash techniques can be used to protect IP… including the registration of digital artwork originals.”— from my 2012 discovery of the article, in the era of BTC, here: flic.kr/p/dPcqJ1

 

Way back in 1985, my undergrad advisor was Marty Hellman. Also spent time with Ralph Merkle at Foresight Institute brain spa weekends. (The pioneers of public key cryptography). I found it fascinating, but I got distracted by neural networks on parallel compute substrates by the time I started and left my PhD.

 

Lots of fun topics today at #CryptoRen

A US Army WWII era cipher machine. On display at the Musée National d'Histoire Militaire , Diekirch in Luxembourg. September 2022.

Enigma Crypto Machine / Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci - Milano

Photo of QR CODE sculpture by @monocromeandminimal from project:pietern - 3dminimal.

Size of the sculpture is 12x12x2cm // 4,7x4,7x1 inch.

compare to this.

Aqui teniu la reencarnació del primer ordinador del mon, el Colossus! Els models originals foren destruits per guardar-ne el secret despres de la SGM, però un esforçat grup d'enginyers anglesos l'ha refet fa uns pocs anys. El seu unic proposit era desxifrar els aparentment imposibles codis de la maquina alemanya Lorenz.

 

Bletchley Park és un dels llocs més fascinants de la historia del segle XX. Aquí, durant la II Guerra Mundial i buscant la manera de desxifrar els codis militars alemanys, en sorgí la informatica i els ordinadors.

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1ofh6n8VZY&feature=related

 

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus

 

ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park

 

========================================================

 

Bletchley Park is one of the most amazing historical places related to the XX Century in general and to WWII in particular. Here, during the colossal effort to crack the german military codes, computers and computing science were born (or at least had their main initial development).

 

This is the reborn Colossus, the first computer in history. The original ones were destroyed during the Cold War, but some years ago, a heroic team managed to built an exact, full working replica. Colossus managed to broke the almost unbreakable Lorenz machine cyphers, used by Hitler's hight command in WWII.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer

 

www.codesandciphers.org.uk/index.htm

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park

 

www.bletchleypark.org/

 

www.bletchleypark.org/content/museum.rhtm

 

For an impresive virtual visit, take a look to these videos:

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmMFp2FQPsY

On the way down from the balcony after a talk on Quantum Cryptography at Ludwig Maximilian University. Took many shots before this, with a bit of luck, my friends were in line floor to floor. :)

Bitcoin (₿) is a cryptocurrency invented in 2008 by an unknown person or group of people using the name Satoshi Nakamoto and started in 2009, when its implementation was released as open-source software.

In 1946, the world was a different place.

 

There was no Google yet or Yahoo.

 

In 1946, the year of your birth, the top selling movie was Song of the South. People buying the popcorn in the cinema lobby had glazing eyes when looking at the poster.

 

Remember, that was before there were DVDs. Heck, even before there was VHS. People were indeed watching movies in the cinema, and not downloading them online. Imagine the packed seats, the laughter, the excitement, the novelty. And mostly all of that without 3D computer effects.

 

In the year 1946, the time when you arrived on this planet, books were still popularly read on paper, not on digital devices. Trees were felled to get the word out. The number one US bestseller of the time was The King's General by Daphne du Maurier. Oh, that's many years ago. Have you read that book? Have you heard of it?

 

In 1946... A revised and streamlined revival of Kern and Hammerstein's Show Boat opens on Broadway at the Ziegfeld Theatre. The United Mine Workers rejoins the American Federation of Labor. Yugoslavia's new constitution, modeling the Soviet Union, establishes 6 constituent republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. The Soviet Union and Switzerland resume diplomatic relations. In Japan, women vote for the first time, during elections for the House of Representatives of the 90th Imperial Diet. King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy abdicates, and is succeeded by his son Humbert II. Laurence Olivier's Henry V opens in the United States nearly 2 years after its release in England. It is the first Shakespeare film in color, and critics hail it as the finest film of a Shakespeare play ever made. The Basketball Association of America is formed in New York City.

 

That was the world you were born into. Since then, you and others have changed it.

 

The Nobel prize for Literature that year went to Hermann Hesse. The Nobel Peace prize went to Emily Greene Balch and John Raleigh Mott. The Nobel prize for physics went to Percy Williams Bridgman from the United States for the invention of an apparatus to produce extremely high pressures, and for the discoveries he made there within the field of high pressure physics. The sensation this created was big. But it didn't stop the planets from spinning, on and on, year by year. Years in which you would grow bigger, older, smarter, and, if you were lucky, sometimes wiser. Years in which you also lost some things. Possessions got misplaced. Memories faded. Friends parted ways. The best friends, you tried to hold on. This is what counts in life, isn't it?

 

The 1940s were indeed a special decade. World War II continued, affecting people in Europe, Asia and elsewhere. The post war world encouraged decolonization, new states and governments emerged, while others declared independence, often not without bloodshed. The dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is published, picturing a totalitarian Big Brother regime controllings its citizens. The NATO gets established. Iceland declares independence Denmark. Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party is victorious in the Chinese Civil War. Mathematics sees the invention of cryptography. Ballistic missiles are created.

 

Do you remember the movie that was all the rage when you were 15? Blue Hawaii. Do you still remember the songs playing on the radio when you were 15? Maybe it was Tossin' and Turnin' by Bobby Lewis. Were you in love? Who were you in love with, do you remember?

 

In 1946, 15 years earlier, a long time ago, the year when you were born, the song Oh! What It Seemed to Be by Frankie Carle topped the US charts. Do you know the lyrics? Do you know the tune? Sing along.

 

It was just a neighborhood dance

That's all that it was

But, oh, what it seemed to be

It was like a masquerade ball

With costumes and all

'Cause you were at the dance with me

...

 

There's a kid outside, shouting, playing. It doesn't care about time. It doesn't know about time. It shouts and it plays and thinks time is forever. You were once that kid.

 

When you were 9, the movie A Kid for Two Farthings was playing. When you were 8, there was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

 

Progress, year after year. Do you wonder where the world is heading towards? The technology available today would have blown your mind in 1946. Do you know what was invented in the year you were born? The Mobile Telephone Service. The Bikini.

  

In 1946, a new character entered the world of comic books: Rocky and Murph. Bang! Boom! But that's just fiction, right? In the real world, in 1946, Laura Bush was born. And Cher. Donald Trump, too. And you, of course. Everyone an individual. Everyone special. Everyone taking a different path through life.

It's 2017.

 

The world is a different place.

 

What path have you taken?

 

The Postcard

 

A postally unused Post Office Picture Card Series. On the divided back of the card is printed:

 

'Children (United Nations Year

of the Child).

(Alice's Adventures in Wonderland).

Reproduced from a stamp designed

by Edward Hughes ARCA FSIAD

and issued by the Post Office on the

18th. July 1979.

Postcard Price 8p.'

 

Charles Dodgson

 

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English writer of children's fiction, notably 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and its sequel 'Through the Looking-Glass'.

 

He was noted for his facility with word play, logic, and fantasy. The poems 'Jabberwocky' and 'The Hunting of the Snark' are classified in the genre of literary nonsense.

 

Charles was also a mathematician, photographer, inventor, and Anglican deacon.

 

Carroll came from a family of high-church Anglicans, and developed a long relationship with Christ Church, Oxford, where he lived for most of his life as a scholar and teacher.

 

Alice Liddell, daughter of the Dean of Christ Church, Henry Liddell, is widely identified as the original for Alice in Wonderland, though Carroll always denied this.

 

Scholars are divided about whether his relationship with children included an erotic component.

 

In 1982, a memorial stone to Carroll was unveiled in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. There are Lewis Carroll societies in many parts of the world dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of his works.

 

-- Charles Dodgson - The Early Years

 

Dodgson's family was predominantly northern English, conservative and high-church Anglican. Most of Dodgson's male ancestors were army officers or Church of England clergy.

 

His paternal grandfather Charles Dodgson had been an army captain, killed in action in Ireland in 1803 when his two sons were hardly more than babies. The older of these sons – yet another Charles Dodgson – was Carroll's father. He went to Westminster School and then to Christ Church, Oxford.

 

Lewis Carroll's father reverted to the other family tradition and took holy orders. He was mathematically gifted, and won a double first degree, which could have been the prelude to a brilliant academic career. Instead, he married his first cousin Frances Jane Lutwidge in 1830 and became a country parson.

 

Dodgson was born on the 27th. January 1832 in All Saints' Vicarage at Daresbury, Cheshire, the eldest boy and the third child. Eight more children followed. When Charles was 11, his father was given the living of Croft-on-Tees in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and the whole family moved to the spacious rectory. This remained their home for the next 25 years.

 

Charles's father was an active and highly conservative cleric of the Church of England who later became the Archdeacon of Richmond and involved himself in the intense religious disputes that were dividing the church. He was high church, inclining toward Anglo-Catholicism. Young Charles was to develop an ambivalent relationship with his father's values, and with the Church of England as a whole.

 

-- Charles Dodgson's Education

 

During his early youth, Dodgson was educated at home. His "reading lists" preserved in the family archives testify to a precocious intellect: at the age of seven, he was reading books such as The Pilgrim's Progress.

 

He also spoke with a stammer - a condition shared by most of his siblings - that often inhibited his social life throughout his years. At the age of twelve he was sent to Richmond Grammar School in Richmond, North Yorkshire.

 

-- Charles Dodgson at Rugby

 

In 1846, Dodgson entered Rugby School where he was evidently unhappy, as he wrote some years after leaving:

 

"I cannot say that any earthly considerations would

induce me to go through my three years again. I can

honestly say that if I could have been secure from

annoyance at night, the hardships of the daily life

would have been comparative trifles to bear."

 

Dodgson did not claim he suffered from bullying, but cited little boys as the main targets of older bullies at Rugby. Stuart Dodgson Collingwood, who was Dodgson's nephew, wrote that:

 

"Even though it is hard for those who have only

known him as the gentle and retiring don to

believe it, it is nevertheless true that long after

he left school, his name was remembered as that

of a boy who knew well how to use his fists in

defence of a righteous cause, which was the

protection of the smaller boys."

 

Scholastically, though, he excelled with apparent ease. Mathematics master R. B. Mayor observed:

 

"I have not had a more promising boy

at his age since I came to Rugby."

 

The mathematics textbook that the young Dodgson used was

Francis Walkingame's 'The Tutor's Assistant; Being a Compendium of Arithmetic.' It still survives and contains an inscription in Latin, which translates as:

 

"This book belongs to Charles

Lutwidge Dodgson: hands off!"

 

Some pages also included annotations such as the one found on page 129, where he wrote "Not a fair question in decimals" next to a question.

 

-- Charles Dodgson at Oxford

 

Charles left Rugby at the end of 1849 and matriculated at the University of Oxford in May 1850 as a member of his father's old college, Christ Church.

 

He went into residence in January 1851. He had been at Oxford only two days when he received a summons home. His mother had died of "inflammation of the brain" - perhaps meningitis or a stroke - at the age of 47.

 

Charles' early academic career veered between high promise and irresistible distraction. He did not always work hard, but was exceptionally gifted, and achievement came easily to him.

 

In 1852, he obtained first-class honours in Mathematics Moderations, and was shortly thereafter nominated to a Studentship by his father's old friend Canon Edward Pusey.

 

In 1854, he obtained first-class honours in the Final Honours School of Mathematics, standing first on the list, graduating Bachelor of Arts. He remained at Christ Church studying and teaching, but the next year he failed an important scholarship through his self-confessed inability to apply himself to study.

 

Even so, his talent as a mathematician won him the Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship in 1855, which he continued to hold for the next 26 years. Despite early unhappiness,

 

Dodgson was to remain at Christ Church, in various capacities, until his death, including that of Sub-Librarian of the Christ Church library, where his office was close to the Deanery, where Alice Liddell lived.

 

-- Charles Dodgson's Health Issues

 

As a very young child, Charles suffered a fever that left him deaf in one ear. At the age of 17, he suffered a severe attack of whooping cough, which was probably responsible for his chronically weak chest in later life. In early childhood, he acquired a stammer, which he referred to as his "hesitation"; it remained throughout his life.

 

The young adult Charles Dodgson was about 6 feet (1.83 m) tall and slender, with curly brown hair and blue or grey eyes (depending on the account). He was described in later life as somewhat asymmetrical, and as carrying himself rather stiffly and awkwardly, although this might be on account of a knee injury sustained in middle age.

 

-- Charles Dodgson's Stammer

 

The stammer has always been a significant part of the image of Dodgson. While one apocryphal story says that he stammered only in adult company and was free and fluent with children, there is no evidence to support this idea. Many children of his acquaintance remembered the stammer, while many adults failed to notice it.

 

Dodgson himself seems to have been far more acutely aware of it than most people whom he met; it is said that he caricatured himself as the Dodo in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, referring to his difficulty in pronouncing his last name, but this is one of the many supposed facts often repeated for which no first-hand evidence remains.

 

He did indeed refer to himself as the dodo, but whether or not this reference was to his stammer is simply speculation.

 

Dodgson's stammer did trouble him, but it was never so debilitating that it prevented him from applying his other personal qualities to do well in society. He lived in a time when people commonly devised their own amusements, and when singing and recitation were required social skills, the young Dodgson was well equipped to be an engaging entertainer.

 

He reportedly could sing tolerably well, and was not afraid to do so before an audience. He was adept at mimicry and storytelling, and was reputedly quite good at charades.

 

-- Charles Dodgson's Social Connections

 

In the interim between his early published writings and the success of the Alice books, Dodgson began to move in the pre-Raphaelite social circle. He first met John Ruskin in 1857 and became friendly with him.

 

Around 1863, he developed a close relationship with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his family. He would often take pictures of the family in the garden of the Rossetti's house in Chelsea. He also knew William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, among other artists.

 

Charles knew fairy-tale author George MacDonald well - in fact it was the enthusiastic reception of Alice by the young MacDonald children that persuaded him to submit the work for publication.

 

-- Charles Dodgson's Politics, Religion, and Philosophy

 

In broad terms, Dodgson has traditionally been regarded as politically, religiously, and personally conservative. Martin Gardner labelled Dodgson as:

 

"A Tory who was awed by lords and

inclined to be snobbish towards

inferiors".

 

The Reverend W. Tuckwell, in his Reminiscences of Oxford (1900), regarded him as:

 

"Austere, shy, precise, absorbed in mathematical

reverie, watchfully tenacious of his dignity, stiffly

conservative in political, theological, social theory,

his life mapped out in squares like Alice's landscape".

 

Dodgson was ordained as a deacon in the Church of England on the 22nd. December 1861. In 'The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll', the editor states that:

 

"His Diary is full of such modest depreciations of

himself and his work, interspersed with earnest

prayers (too sacred and private to be reproduced

here) that God would forgive him the past, and

help him to perform His holy will in the future."

 

When a friend asked him in 1897 about his religious views, Dodgson wrote in response that he was a member of the Church of England, but doubted if he was fully a 'High Churchman'. He added:

 

"I believe that when you and I come to lie down

for the last time, if only we can keep firm hold of

the great truths Christ taught us - our own utter

worthlessness and His infinite worth; and that He

has brought us back to our one Father, and made

us His brethren, and so brethren to one another -

we shall have all we need to guide us through the

shadows.

Most assuredly I accept to the full the doctrines

you refer to - that Christ died to save us, that we

have no other way of salvation open to us but

through His death, and that it is by faith in Him,

and through no merit of ours, that we are

reconciled to God; and most assuredly I can

cordially say I owe all to Him who loved me, and

died on the Cross of Calvary."

 

Dodgson also expressed interest in other fields. He was an early member of the Society for Psychical Research, and one of his letters suggests that he accepted as real what was then called 'thought reading.'

 

In 1895, Charles developed an argument on deductive reasoning in his article 'What the Tortoise Said to Achilles', which appeared in one of the early volumes of Mind. The article was reprinted in the same journal a hundred years later in 1995, with a subsequent article by Simon Blackburn entitled 'Practical Tortoise Raising.'

 

-- Charles Dodgson's Literary and Artistic Activities

 

From a young age, Dodgson wrote poetry and short stories, contributing heavily to the family magazine Mischmasch and later sending them to various magazines, enjoying moderate success.

 

Some time after 1850, he wrote puppet plays for his siblings' entertainment, of which one has survived: 'La Guida di Bragia'.

 

Between 1854 and 1856, his work appeared in the national publications The Comic Times and The Train, as well as smaller magazines such as the Whitby Gazette and the Oxford Critic. Most of this output was humorous, sometimes satirical, but his standards and ambitions were exacting. In July 1855 he wrote:

 

"I do not think I have yet written anything

worthy of real publication (in which I do not

include the Whitby Gazette or the Oxonian

Advertiser), but I do not despair of doing

so someday."

 

In March 1856, he published his first piece of work under the name that would make him famous. A romantic poem called 'Solitude' appeared in The Train under the authorship of 'Lewis Carroll.'

 

This pseudonym was a play on his real name: Lewis was the anglicised form of Ludovicus, which was the Latin for Lutwidge, and Carroll an Irish surname similar to the Latin name Carolus, from which comes the name Charles. The pseudonym was chosen by editor Edmund Yates from a list of four submitted by Dodgson, the others being Edgar Cuthwellis, Edgar U. C. Westhill, and Louis Carroll.

 

-- The Alice Books

 

In 1856, Dean Henry Liddell arrived at Christ Church, bringing with him his young family, all of whom would figure largely in Dodgson's life over the following years, and would greatly influence his writing career.

 

Dodgson became close friends with Liddell's wife Lorina and their children, particularly the three sisters Lorina, Edith, and Alice Liddell.

 

Charles was widely assumed for many years to have derived his own 'Alice' from Alice Liddell; the acrostic poem at the end of Through the Looking-Glass spells out her name in full, and there are also many superficial references to her hidden in the text of both books.

 

Dodgson himself repeatedly denied in later life that his 'little heroine' was based on any real child, and he frequently dedicated his works to girls of his acquaintance, adding their names in acrostic poems at the beginning of the text.

 

Gertrude Chataway's name appears in this form at the beginning of The Hunting of the Snark, and it is not suggested that this means that any of the characters in the narrative are based on her.

 

Information is scarce (Dodgson's diaries for the years 1858–1862 are missing), but it seems clear that his friendship with the Liddell family was an important part of his life in the late 1850's, and he grew into the habit of taking the children on rowing trips (first the boy Harry, and later the three girls) accompanied by an adult friend to nearby Nuneham Courtenay or Godstow.

 

It was on one such expedition on the 4th. July 1862 that Dodgson invented the outline of the story that eventually became his first and greatest commercial success. He told the story to Alice Liddell, and she begged him to write it down, and Dodgson eventually (after much delay) presented her with a handwritten, illustrated manuscript entitled 'Alice's Adventures Under Ground' in November 1864.

 

Before this, the family of friend and mentor George MacDonald read Dodgson's incomplete manuscript, and the enthusiasm of the MacDonald children encouraged Dodgson to seek publication. In 1863, he took the unfinished manuscript to Macmillan the publisher, who liked it immediately.

 

After possible alternative titles were rejected - 'Alice Among the Fairies' and 'Alice's Golden Hour' - the work was finally published as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865 under the Lewis Carroll pen-name, which Dodgson had first used some nine years earlier.

 

The illustrations were by Sir John Tenniel; Dodgson evidently thought that a published book would need the skills of a professional artist. Annotated versions provide insights into many of the ideas and hidden meanings that are prevalent in these books.[ Critical literature has often proposed Freudian interpretations of the book as "a descent into the dark world of the subconscious", as well as seeing it as a satire upon contemporary mathematical advances.

 

The overwhelming commercial success of the first Alice book changed Dodgson's life in many ways. The fame of his alter ego Lewis Carroll soon spread around the world. He was inundated with fan mail, and with sometimes unwanted attention.

 

Indeed, according to one popular story, Queen Victoria herself enjoyed Alice in Wonderland so much that she commanded that he dedicate his next book to her, and was accordingly presented with his next work, a scholarly mathematical volume entitled 'An Elementary Treatise on Determinants.'

 

Dodgson himself vehemently denied this story, commenting:

 

"It is utterly false in every particular:

nothing even resembling it has

occurred."

 

It is also unlikely for other reasons. As T. B. Strong commented in a Times article:

 

"It would have been clean contrary to all

his practice to identify the author of Alice

with the author of his mathematical works".

 

Although Charles began earning quite substantial sums of money, he continued with his seemingly disliked post at Christ Church.

 

Late in 1871, he published the sequel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Its somewhat darker mood possibly reflects changes in Dodgson's life. His father's death in 1868 plunged him into a depression that lasted some years.

 

-- The Hunting of the Snark

 

In 1876, Dodgson produced his next great work, The Hunting of the Snark, a fantastical 'nonsense' poem, with illustrations by Henry Holiday, exploring the adventures of a bizarre crew of nine tradesmen and one beaver, who set off to find the snark.

 

It received largely mixed reviews from Carroll's contemporary reviewers, but was enormously popular with the public, having been reprinted seventeen times between 1876 and 1908. It has seen various adaptations into musicals, opera, theatre, plays and music. Painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti reputedly became convinced that the poem was about him.

 

-- Sylvie and Bruno

 

In 1895, 30 years after the publication of his masterpieces, Carroll attempted a comeback, producing a two-volume tale of the fairy siblings Sylvie and Bruno. Carroll entwines two plots set in two alternative worlds, one set in rural England and the other in the fairytale kingdoms of Elfland, Outland, and others.

 

The fairytale world satirises English society, and more specifically the world of academia. Sylvie and Bruno came out in two volumes and is considered a lesser work, although it has remained in print for over a century.

 

-- Charles Dodgson's Photography (1856–1880)

 

In 1856, Dodgson took up the new art form of photography under the influence first of his uncle Skeffington Lutwidge, and later of his Oxford friend Reginald Southey. He soon excelled at the art, and became a well-known gentleman-photographer. Charles even toyed with the idea of making a living out of it in his early years.

 

A study by Roger Taylor and Edward Wakeling exhaustively lists every surviving print, and Taylor calculates that just over half of his surviving work depicts young girls, though about 60% of his original photographic portfolio is now missing.

 

Dodgson also made many studies of men, women, boys, and landscapes; his subjects also include skeletons, dolls, dogs, statues, paintings, and trees. His pictures of children were taken with a parent in attendance, and many of the pictures were taken in the Liddell garden because natural sunlight was required for good exposures.

 

Charles also found photography to be a useful entrée into higher social circles. During the most productive part of his career, he made portraits of notable sitters such as John Everett Millais, Ellen Terry, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Michael Faraday, Lord Salisbury, and Alfred Lord Tennyson.

 

By the time that Dodgson abruptly ceased photography in 1880, over 24 years), he had established his own studio on the roof of Tom Quad. Over the course of 24 years he created around 3,000 images, and was an amateur master of the medium, although fewer than 1,000 images have survived time and deliberate destruction.

 

Charles stopped taking photographs because keeping his studio working was too time-consuming. He used the wet collodion process; commercial photographers who started using the dry-plate process in the 1870's took pictures more quickly.

 

-- Charles Dodgson's Inventions

 

In order to promote letter writing, Dodgson invented "The Wonderland Postage-Stamp Case" in 1889. This was a cloth-backed folder with twelve slots, two marked for inserting the most commonly used penny stamp, and one each for the other current denominations up to one shilling.

 

The folder was then put into a slipcase decorated with a picture of Alice on the front, and the Cheshire Cat on the back. It was intended to organize stamps wherever writing utensils were stored. Carroll expressly noted in 'Eight or Nine Wise Words about Letter-Writing' that it was not intended to be carried in a pocket or purse, as individual stamps could easily be carried on their own. The pack included a copy of a pamphlet version of this lecture.

 

Another invention was a writing tablet called the nyctograph that allowed note-taking in the dark, thus eliminating the need to get out of bed and strike a light when one woke with an idea. The device consisted of a gridded card with sixteen squares and a system of symbols representing an alphabet of Dodgson's design, using letter shapes similar to the Graffiti writing system on a Palm device.

 

Charles also devised a number of games, including an early version of what today is known as Scrabble. He appears to have invented - or at least certainly popularised - the 'doublet', a form of brain-teaser that is still popular today, changing one word into another by altering one letter at a time, each successive change always resulting in a genuine word.

 

The games and puzzles of Lewis Carroll were the subject of Martin Gardner's March 1960 Mathematical Games column in Scientific American.

 

Charles' other inventions include:

 

-- A rule for finding the day of the week for any date

-- A a means for justifying right margins on a typewriter

-- A steering device for a velociam (a type of tricycle)

-- Fairer elimination rules for tennis tournaments

-- A new type of postal money order

-- Rules for reckoning postage

-- Rules for a win in betting

-- Rules for dividing a number by various divisors

-- A cardboard scale for the Senior Common Room at Christ Church which, held next to a glass, ensured the right amount of liqueur for the price paid

-- A double-sided adhesive strip to fasten envelopes or mount things in books

-- A device for helping a bedridden invalid to read from a book placed sideways

-- At least two ciphers for cryptography.

 

Charles also proposed alternative systems of parliamentary representation. He proposed the so-called Dodgson's method. In 1884, he proposed a proportional representation system based on multi-member districts, each voter casting only a single vote, quotas as minimum requirements to take seats, and votes transferable by candidates through what is now called Liquid democracy.

 

-- Charles Dodgson's Mathematical Work

 

Within the academic discipline of mathematics, Dodgson worked primarily in the fields of geometry, linear and matrix algebra, mathematical logic, and recreational mathematics, producing nearly a dozen books under his real name.

 

Dodgson also developed new ideas in probability and linear algebra (e.g., the first printed proof of the Kronecker–Capelli theorem). He also researched the process of elections and committees; some of this work was not published until well after his death.

 

-- Charles Dodgson's Mathematical Logic

 

Charles' work in the field of mathematical logic attracted renewed interest in the late 20th. century. Martin Gardner's book on logic machines and diagrams, and William Warren Bartley's posthumous publication of the second part of Dodgson's symbolic logic book have sparked a re-evaluation of Dodgson's contributions to symbolic logic.

 

In his Symbolic Logic Part II, Dodgson introduced the Method of Trees, the earliest modern use of a truth tree.

 

-- Charles Dodgson's Algebra

 

Robbins' and Rumsey's investigation of Dodgson condensation, a method of evaluating determinants, led them to the alternating sign matrix conjecture, which is now a theorem.

 

-- Charles Dodgson's Recreational Mathematics

 

The discovery in the 1990's of additional ciphers that Dodgson had constructed, in addition to his 'Memoria Technica', showed that he had employed sophisticated mathematical ideas in their creation.

 

-- Charles Dodgson's Correspondence

 

Dodgson wrote and received as many as 98,721 letters, according to a special letter register which he devised. He documented his advice about how to write more satisfying letters in a missive entitled 'Eight or Nine Wise Words about Letter-Writing'.

 

-- Charles Dodgson - The Later Years

 

Dodgson's existence remained little changed over the final twenty years of his life, despite his growing wealth and fame. He continued to teach at Christ Church until 1881, and remained in residence there until his death.

 

Public appearances included attending the West End musical Alice in Wonderland (the first major live production of his Alice books) at the Prince of Wales Theatre on the 30th. December 1886.

 

The two volumes of his last novel, Sylvie and Bruno, were published in 1889 and 1893, but the intricacy of this work was apparently not appreciated by contemporary readers; it achieved nothing like the success of the Alice books, with disappointing reviews and sales of only 13,000 copies.

 

The only known occasion on which Charles travelled abroad was a trip to Russia in 1867 as an ecclesiastic, together with the Reverend Henry Liddon. He recounts the travel in his 'Russian Journal', which was first commercially published in 1935.

 

-- The Death of Charles Dodgson

 

Dodgson died of pneumonia following influenza on the 14th. January 1898 at his sisters' home, 'The Chestnuts', in Guildford, Surrey, just four days before the death of Henry Liddell. Charles was two weeks away from turning 66 years old.

 

His funeral service was held at the nearby St. Mary's Church, and he was laid to rest at the Mount Cemetery in Guildford.

 

-- Charles Dodgson's Sexuality

 

Some late twentieth-century biographers have suggested that Dodgson's interest in children had an erotic element, including Morton N. Cohen in his 1995 book 'Lewis Carroll: A Biography.'

 

Cohen, speculates that:

 

"Dodgson's sexual energies sought unconventional

outlets.

We cannot know to what extent sexual urges lay

behind Charles's preference for drawing and

photographing children in the nude. He contended

the preference was entirely aesthetic. But given his

emotional attachment to children as well as his

aesthetic appreciation of their forms, his assertion

that his interest was strictly artistic is naïve.

He probably felt more than he dared acknowledge,

even to himself."

 

Cohen goes on to note that:

 

"Dodgson apparently convinced many of his friends

that his attachment to the nude female child form

was free of any eroticism, however later generations

look beneath the surface."

 

He argues that Dodgson may have wanted to marry the 11-year-old Alice Liddell, and that this was the cause of the unexplained "break" with the family in June 1863, an event for which other explanations are offered.

 

Biographers Derek Hudson and Roger Lancelyn Green stop short of identifying Dodgson as a paedophile (Green also edited Dodgson's diaries and papers), but they concur that he had a passion for small female children and next to no interest in the adult world. Catherine Robson refers to Carroll as:

 

"The Victorian era's most

famous (or infamous) girl

lover".

 

Several other writers and scholars have challenged the evidential basis for Cohen's and others' views about Dodgson's sexual interests. Hugues Lebailly has endeavoured to set Dodgson's child photography within the "Victorian Child Cult", which perceived child nudity as essentially an expression of innocence.

 

Lebailly claims that studies of child nudes were mainstream and fashionable in Dodgson's time, and that most photographers made them as a matter of course. Lebailly states that child nudes even appeared on Victorian Christmas cards, implying a very different social and aesthetic assessment of such material.

 

Lebailly concludes that it has been an error of Dodgson's biographers to view his child-photography with 20th.- or 21st.-century eyes, and to have presented it as some form of personal idiosyncrasy, when it was consistent with the norms of the time.

 

Karoline Leach's re-appraisal of Dodgson focused on his controversial sexuality. She argues that the allegations of paedophilia rose initially from a misunderstanding of Victorian morals, as well as the mistaken idea - fostered by Dodgson's various biographers - that he had no interest in adult women.

 

Leach termed the traditional image of Dodgson "the Carroll Myth". She drew attention to the large amounts of evidence in his diaries and letters that he was also keenly interested in adult women, married and single, and enjoyed several relationships with them that would have been considered scandalous by the social standards of his time.

 

She also pointed to the fact that many of those whom he described as "child-friends" were girls in their late teens and even twenties. She argues that suggestions of paedophilia emerged only many years after his death, when his well-meaning family had suppressed all evidence of his relationships with women in an effort to preserve his reputation, thus giving a false impression of a man interested only in little girls.

 

Similarly, Leach points to a 1932 biography by Langford Reed as the source of the dubious claim that many of Carroll's female friendships ended when the girls reached the age of 14.

 

In addition to the biographical works that have discussed Dodgson's sexuality, there are modern artistic interpretations of his life and work that do so as well – in particular, Dennis Potter in his play 'Alice' and his screenplay for the motion picture 'Dreamchild', and Robert Wilson in his musical 'Alice'.

 

-- Charles Dodgson's Ordination

 

Dodgson had been groomed for the ordained ministry in the Church of England from a very early age, and was expected to be ordained within four years of obtaining his master's degree, as a condition of his residency at Christ Church.

 

Charles delayed the process for some time, but was eventually ordained as a deacon on the 22nd. December 1861. But when the time came a year later to be ordained as a priest, Dodgson appealed to the dean for permission not to proceed.

 

This was against college rules and, initially, Dean Liddell told him that he would have to consult the college ruling body, which would almost certainly have resulted in his being expelled.

 

However for unknown reasons, Liddell changed his mind overnight, and permitted him to remain at the college in defiance of the rules. Dodgson never became a priest, unique amongst senior students of his time.

 

There is no conclusive evidence about why Dodgson rejected the priesthood. Some have suggested that his stammer made him reluctant because he was afraid of having to preach. Wilson quotes letters by Dodgson describing difficulty in reading lessons and prayers rather than preaching in his own words.

 

However Dodgson did indeed preach in later life, even though not in priest's orders, so it seems unlikely that his impediment was a major factor affecting his choice.

 

Wilson also points out that the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, who ordained Dodgson, had strong views against clergy going to the theatre, one of Dodgson's great interests. Charles was interested in minority forms of Christianity (he was an admirer of F. D. Maurice) and "alternative" religions such as theosophy.

 

Dodgson became deeply troubled by an unexplained sense of sin and guilt at this time (the early 1860's), and frequently expressed the view in his diaries that he was a "vile and worthless" sinner, unworthy of the priesthood. This feeling of sin and unworthiness may well have affected his decision to abandon being ordained into the priesthood.

 

-- The Missing Diaries

 

At least four complete volumes and around seven pages of text are missing from Dodgson's 13 diaries. The loss of the volumes remains unexplained; the pages have been removed by an unknown hand.

 

Most scholars assume that the diary material was removed by family members in the interests of preserving the family name, but this has not been proven. Except for one page, material is missing from his diaries for the period between 1853 and 1863 (when Dodgson was 21–31 years old).

 

This was a period when Dodgson began suffering great mental and spiritual anguish, and confessing to an overwhelming sense of his own sin. This was also the period of time when he composed his extensive love poetry, leading to speculation that the poems may have been autobiographical.

 

Many theories have been put forward to explain the missing material. A popular explanation for one missing page (27th. June 1863) is that it might have been torn out to conceal a proposal of marriage on that day to the 11-year-old Alice Liddell.

 

However, there has never been any evidence to suggest that this was so, and a paper offers some evidence to the contrary which was discovered by Karoline Leach in the Dodgson family archive in 1996.

 

This paper is known as the "Cut Pages in Diary" document, and was compiled by various members of Carroll's family after his death. Part of it may have been written at the time when the pages were destroyed, though this is unclear.

 

The document offers a brief summary of two diary pages that are missing, including the one for the 27th. June 1863. The summary for this page states that Mrs. Liddell told Dodgson that there was gossip circulating about him and the Liddell family's governess, as well as about his relationship with "Ina", presumably Alice's older sister Lorina Liddell.

 

The "break" with the Liddell family that occurred soon after was presumably in response to this gossip. An alternative interpretation has been made regarding Carroll's rumoured involvement with "Ina": Lorina was also the name of Alice Liddell's mother.

 

What is deemed most crucial and surprising is that the document seems to imply that Dodgson's break with the family was not connected with Alice at all; until a primary source is discovered, the events of the 27th. June 1863 will remain in doubt.

 

-- Charles Dodgson's Migraine and Epilepsy

 

In his diary for 1880, Dodgson recorded experiencing his first episode of migraine with aura, describing very accurately the process of "moving fortifications" that are a manifestation of the aura stage of the syndrome.

 

Unfortunately, there is no clear evidence to show whether this was his first experience of migraine per se, or whether he may have previously suffered the far more common form of migraine without aura. The latter seems most likely, given that migraine most commonly develops in the teens or early adulthood.

 

Another form of migraine aura called Alice in Wonderland syndrome has been named after Dodgson's little heroine because its manifestation can resemble the sudden size-changes in the book. It is also known as micropsia and macropsia, a brain condition affecting the way that objects are perceived.

 

For example, an afflicted person may look at a larger object such as a basketball and perceive it as if it were the size of a golf ball. Some authors have suggested that Dodgson may have suffered from this type of aura, and used it as an inspiration in his work, although there is no evidence that he did.

 

Dodgson also suffered two attacks in which he lost consciousness.They were diagnosed as "epileptiform" seizures. Some have concluded from this that he was a lifetime sufferer of this condition, but there is no evidence of this in his diaries beyond these two attacks.

 

Sadi Ranson has suggested that Carroll may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy, in which consciousness is not always completely lost but altered, and in which the symptoms mimic many of the same experiences as Alice in Wonderland.

 

Carroll had at least one incident in which he suffered full loss of consciousness and awoke with a bloody nose, which he recorded in his diary and noted that the episode left him not feeling himself for "quite sometime afterward". This attack was diagnosed as possibly "epileptiform" and Carroll himself later wrote of his "seizures" in the same diary.

 

Most of the standard diagnostic tests of today were not available in the nineteenth century. Yvonne Hart, consultant neurologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, has concluded that Dodgson very likely had migraine, and may have had epilepsy, but she emphasises that she would have considerable doubt about making a diagnosis of epilepsy without further information.

 

-- Charles Dodgson's Legacy

 

There are societies in many parts of the world dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of Charles' works and the investigation of his life.

 

Copenhagen Street in Islington, north London is the location of the Lewis Carroll Children's Library.

 

In 1982, Charles' great-nephew unveiled a memorial stone to him in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.

 

In January 1994, an asteroid, 6984 Lewiscarroll, was discovered and named after Carroll.

 

The Lewis Carroll Centenary Wood near his birthplace in Daresbury opened in 2000.

 

Born in All Saints' Vicarage, Daresbury, Cheshire, in 1832, Lewis Carroll is commemorated at All Saints' Church, Daresbury in its stained glass windows depicting characters from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In March 2012, the Lewis Carroll Centre, attached to the church, was opened.

 

Bletchley Park és un dels llocs més fascinants de la historia del segle XX. Aquí, durant la II Guerra Mundial i buscant la manera de desxifrar els codis militars alemanys, en sorgí la informatica i els ordinadors.

 

Aquí podeu veure una vista general dels blocs construits a partir de 1941 per encabir el creixent personal del que es coneixeria posteriorment com "Station X".

 

ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park

 

========================================================

 

Enlarge This Photo

 

Bletchley Park is one of the most amazing historical places related to the XX Century in general and to WWII in particular. Here, during the colossal effort to crack the german military codes, computers and computing science were born (or at least had their main intial development).

 

Here you can see some of the wartime blocks (in fact Block-D) build after 1940, in order to cope with the increasing staff of what was known as the GC&CS, but his actual famous name is Station X.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park

 

www.bletchleypark.org/

 

www.bletchleypark.org/content/museum.rhtm

 

For an impresive virtual visit, take a look to these videos:

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmMFp2FQPsY

If you look carefully, you can see a map of Greenland, North America, Central America, South America, and the Gulf of Mexico. That's called pareidolia.

 

Pareidolia is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one detects an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none. Pareidolia is a specific but common type of apophenia (the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things or ideas).

 

Common examples include perceived images of animals, faces, or objects in cloud formations; seeing faces in inanimate objects; or lunar pareidolia like the Man in the Moon or the Moon rabbit. The concept of pareidolia may extend to include hidden messages in recorded music played in reverse or at higher- or lower-than-normal speeds, and hearing voices (mainly indistinct) or music in random noise, such as that produced by air conditioners or by fans.[3][4] Face pareidolia has also been demonstrated in rhesus macaques.[5]

Etymology

 

The word derives from the Greek words pará (παρά, "beside, alongside, instead [of]") and the noun eídōlon (εἴδωλον, "image, form, shape").[6]

 

Karl Ludwig Kahlbaum introduced the German term Pareidolie in his 1866 paper "Die Sinnesdelierien"[7] ("On Delusion of the Senses"). When Kahlbaum's paper was reviewed the following year (1867) in The Journal of Mental Science, Volume 13, Pareidolie was translated into English as "pareidolia", and noted to be synonymous with the terms "...changing hallucination, partial hallucination, [and] perception of secondary images."[8]

Link to other conditions

 

Pareidolia correlates with age and is frequent among patients with Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies.[9]

Explanations

 

Pareidolia can cause people to interpret random images, or patterns of light and shadow, as faces.[10] A 2009 magnetoencephalography study found that objects perceived as faces evoke an early (165 ms) activation of the fusiform face area at a time and location similar to that evoked by faces, whereas other common objects do not evoke such activation. This activation is similar to a slightly faster time (130 ms) that is seen for images of real faces. The authors suggest that face perception evoked by face-like objects is a relatively early process, and not a late cognitive reinterpretation phenomenon.[11]

 

A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study in 2011 similarly showed that repeated presentation of novel visual shapes that were interpreted as meaningful led to decreased fMRI responses for real objects. These results indicate that the interpretation of ambiguous stimuli depends upon processes similar to those elicited by known objects.[12]

 

Pareidolia was found to affect brain function and brain waves. In a 2022 study, EEG records show that responses in the frontal and occipitotemporal cortexes begin prior to when one recognizes faces and later, when they are not recognized.[13] By displaying these proactive brain waves, scientists can then have a basis for data rather than relying on self-reported sightings. [clarification needed]

 

These studies help to explain why people generally identify a few lines and a circle as a "face" so quickly and without hesitation. Cognitive processes are activated by the "face-like" object which alerts the observer to both the emotional state and identity of the subject, even before the conscious mind begins to process or even receive the information. A "stick figure face", despite its simplicity, can convey mood information, and be drawn to indicate emotions such as happiness or anger. This robust and subtle capability is hypothesized to be the result of natural selection favoring people most able to quickly identify the mental state, for example, of threatening people, thus providing the individual an opportunity to flee or attack preemptively.[14] This ability, though highly specialized for the processing and recognition of human emotions, also functions to determine the demeanor of wildlife.[15][self-published source?]

Pareidolia and creative thinking

 

Pareidolia plays a significant role in creative cognition, enabling artists and viewers to perceive novel forms and meanings in ambiguous stimuli.[16] Joanne Lee highlights that this phenomenon has been harnessed in artistic practices for centuries (Da Vinci for example).[17] The phenomenon was particularly important to surrealism, where artists like Salvador Dali, influenced by André Breton, embraced pareidolic ambiguity to challenge rationalist perceptions and provoke new ways of seeing.[18]

Examples

Mimetoliths

A more detailed photograph taken in different lighting in 2001 clarifies the "face" to be a natural rock formation.

 

A mimetolithic pattern is a pattern created on rocks that may come to mimic recognizable forms through the random processes of formation, weathering and erosion. A well-known example is the Face on Mars, a rock formation on Mars that resembled a human face in certain satellite photos. Most mimetoliths are much larger than the subjects they resemble, such as a cliff profile that looks like a human face.

 

Picture jaspers exhibit combinations of patterns, such as banding from flow or depositional patterns (from water or wind), or dendritic or color variations, resulting in what appear to be miniature scenes on a cut section, which is then used for jewelry.

 

Chert nodules, concretions, or pebbles may in certain cases be mistakenly identified as skeletal remains, egg fossils, or other antiquities of organic origin by amateur enthusiasts.

 

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Japanese researcher Chonosuke Okamura self-published a series of reports titled Original Report of the Okamura Fossil Laboratory, in which he described tiny inclusions in polished limestone from the Silurian period (425 mya) as being preserved fossil remains of tiny humans, gorillas, dogs, dragons, dinosaurs and other organisms, all of them only millimeters long, leading him to claim, "There have been no changes in the bodies of mankind since the Silurian period... except for a growth in stature from 3.5 mm to 1,700 mm."[19][20] Okamura's research earned him an Ig Nobel Prize (a parody of the Nobel Prize) in biodiversity in 1996.[21][22]

 

Some sources describe various mimetolithic features on Pluto, including a heart-shaped region.[23][24][25]

Clouds

 

Seeing shapes in cloud patterns is another example of this phenomenon. Rogowitz and Voss (1990) showed a relationship between seeing shapes in cloud patterns and fractal dimension.[clarification needed] They varied the fractal dimension of the boundary contour from 1.2 to 1.8, and found that the lower the fractal dimension, the more likely people were to report seeing nameable shapes of animals, faces, and fantasy creatures.[26] From above, pareidolia may be perceived in satellite imagery of tropical cyclones. Notably hurricanes Matthew and Milton gained much attention for resembling a human face or skull when viewed from the side.[27]

Mars canals

Map of Martian "canals" by Percival Lowell

Main article: Martian canals

 

A notable example of pareidolia occurred in 1877, when observers using telescopes to view the surface of Mars thought that they saw faint straight lines, which were then interpreted by some as canals. It was theorized that the canals were possibly created by sentient beings. This created a sensation. In the next few years better photographic techniques and stronger telescopes were developed and applied, which resulted in new images in which the faint lines disappeared, and the canal theory was debunked as an example of pareidolia.[28][29]

Lunar surface

Pareidolias in the moon

 

Many cultures recognize pareidolic images in the disc of the full moon, including the human face known as the Man in the Moon in many Northern Hemisphere cultures[30][31] and the Moon rabbit in East Asian and indigenous American cultures.[32][33] Other cultures see a walking figure carrying a wide burden on their back,[31] including in Germanic tradition,[34] Haida mythology,[35] and Latvian mythology.[36]

Projective tests

 

The Rorschach inkblot test uses pareidolia in an attempt to gain insight into a person's mental state. The Rorschach is a projective test that elicits thoughts or feelings of respondents that are "projected" onto the ambiguous inkblot images.[37] Rorschach inkblots have low-fractal-dimension boundary contours, which may elicit general shape-naming behaviors, serving as vehicles for projected meanings.[26]

Banknotes

 

Owing to the way designs are engraved and printed, occurrences of pareidolia have occasionally been reported in banknotes.

 

One example is the 1954 Canadian Landscape Canadian dollar banknote series, known among collectors as the "Devil's Head" variety of the initial print runs. The obverse of the notes features what appears to be an exaggerated grinning face, formed from patterns in the hair of Queen Elizabeth II. The phenomenon generated enough attention for revised designs to be issued in 1956, which removed the effect.[38]

Literature

 

Renaissance authors have shown a particular interest in pareidolia. In William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, for example, Prince Hamlet points at the sky and "demonstrates" his supposed madness in this exchange with Polonius:[39][40]

 

HAMLET

Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in the shape of a camel?

POLONIUS

By th'Mass and 'tis, like a camel indeed.

HAMLET

Methinks it is a weasel.

POLONIUS

It is backed like a weasel.

HAMLET

Or a whale.

POLONIUS

Very like a whale.

 

Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a short story called "The Great Stone Face" in which a face seen in the side of a mountain (based on the real-life The Old Man of the Mountain) is revered by a village.[41]

Art

The Jurist by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 1566. What appears to be his face is a collection of fish and poultry, while his body is a collection of books dressed in a coat.

Salem by Sydney Curnow Vosper (1908), a painting notorious for the belief that the face of the devil was hidden in the main character's shawl

See also: Hidden face

 

Renaissance artists often used pareidolia in paintings and drawings: Andrea Mantegna, Leonardo da Vinci, Giotto, Hans Holbein, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, and many more have shown images—often human faces—that due to pareidolia appear in objects or clouds.[42]

 

In his notebooks, Leonardo da Vinci wrote of pareidolia as a device for painters, writing:

 

If you look at any walls spotted with various stains or with a mixture of different kinds of stones, if you are about to invent some scene you will be able to see in it a resemblance to various different landscapes adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys, and various groups of hills. You will also be able to see divers combats and figures in quick movement, and strange expressions of faces, and outlandish costumes, and an infinite number of things which you can then reduce into separate and well conceived forms.[43]

 

Salem, a 1908 painting by Sydney Curnow Vosper, gained notoriety due to a rumour that it contained a hidden face, that of the devil. This led many commentators to visualize a demonic face depicted in the shawl of the main figure, despite the artist's denial that any faces had deliberately been painted into the shawl.[44][45]

 

Surrealist artists such as Salvador Dalí would intentionally use pareidolia in their works, often in the form of a hidden face.

Architecture

Illusory woman in the Niğde Alaaddin Mosque portal

 

Two 13th-century edifices in Turkey display architectural use of shadows of stone carvings at the entrance. Outright pictures are avoided in Islam but tessellations and calligraphic pictures were allowed, so designed "accidental" silhouettes of carved stone tessellations became a creative escape.

 

Niğde Alaaddin Mosque in Niğde, Turkey (1223), with its "mukarnas" art where the shadows of three-dimensional ornamentation with stone masonry around the entrance form a chiaroscuro drawing of a woman's face with a crown and long hair appearing at a specific time, at some specific days of the year.[46][47][48]

Divriği Great Mosque and Hospital in Sivas, Turkey (1229), shows shadows of the three-dimensional ornaments of both entrances of the mosque part, to cast a giant shadow of a praying man that changes pose as the sun moves, as if to illustrate what the purpose of the building is. Another detail is the difference in the impressions of the clothing of the two shadow-men indicating two different styles, possibly to tell who is to enter through which door.[49]

 

Religion

Further information: Perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena

 

There have been many instances of perceptions of religious imagery and themes, especially the faces of religious figures, in ordinary phenomena. Many involve images of Jesus,[37] the Virgin Mary,[50] the word Allah,[51] or other religious phenomena: in September 2007 in Singapore, for example, a callus on a tree resembled a monkey, leading believers to pay homage to the "Monkey god" (either Sun Wukong or Hanuman) in the monkey tree phenomenon.[52]

 

Publicity surrounding sightings of religious figures and other surprising images in ordinary objects has spawned a market for such items on online auctions like eBay. One famous instance was a grilled cheese sandwich with the face of the Virgin Mary.[53]

 

During the September 11 attacks, television viewers supposedly saw the face of Satan in clouds of smoke billowing out of the World Trade Center after it was struck by the airplane.[54] Another example of face recognition pareidolia originated in the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral, when a few observers claimed to see Jesus in the flames.[55]

 

While attempting to validate the imprint of a crucified man on the Shroud of Turin as Jesus, a variety of objects have been described as being visible on the linen. These objects include a number of plant species, a coin with Roman numerals, and multiple insect species.[56] In an experimental setting using a picture of plain linen cloth, participants who had been told that there could possibly be visible words in the cloth, collectively saw 2 religious words. Those told that the cloth was of some religious importance saw 12 religious words, and those who were also told that it was of religious importance, but also given suggestions of possible religious words, saw 37 religious words.[57] The researchers posit that the reason the Shroud has been said to have so many different symbols and objects is because it was already deemed to have the imprint of Jesus prior to the search for symbols and other imprints in the cloth, and therefore it was simply pareidolia at work.[56]

Computer vision

Further information: Hallucination (artificial intelligence)

Given an image of jellyfish swimming, the DeepDream program can be encouraged to "see" dogs.

 

Pareidolia can occur in computer vision,[58] specifically in image recognition programs, in which vague clues can spuriously detect images or features. In the case of an artificial neural network, higher-level features correspond to more recognizable features, and enhancing these features brings out what the computer sees. These examples of pareidolia reflect the training set of images that the network has "seen" previously.

 

Striking visuals can be produced in this way, notably in the DeepDream software, which falsely detects and then exaggerates features such as eyes and faces in any image. The features can be further exaggerated by creating a feedback loop where the output is used as the input for the network. (The adjacent image was created by iterating the loop 50 times.) Additionally, the output can be modified such as slightly zooming in to create an animation of the images perspective flying through the surrealistic imagery.

Auditory

 

In 1971 Konstantīns Raudive wrote Breakthrough, detailing what he believed was the discovery of electronic voice phenomena (EVP). EVP has been described as auditory pareidolia.[37] Allegations of backmasking in popular music, in which a listener claims a message has been recorded backward onto a track meant to be played forward, have also been described as auditory pareidolia.[37][59] In 1995, the psychologist Diana Deutsch invented an algorithm for producing phantom words and phrases with the sounds coming from two stereo loudspeakers, one to the listener's left and the other to his right, producing a phase offset in time between the speakers. After listening for a while, phantom words and phrases suddenly emerge, and these often appear to reflect what is on the listener's mind.[60][61]

Deliberate practical use

Medical education, radiology images

Cross-section of nematode worm Ascaris

 

Medical educators sometimes teach medical students and resident physicians (doctors in training) to use pareidolia and patternicity to learn to recognize human anatomy on radiology imaging studies.

 

Examples include assessing radiographs (X-ray images) of the human vertebral spine. Patrick Foye, M.D., professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Rutgers University, New Jersey Medical School, has written that pareidolia is used to teach medical trainees to assess for spinal fractures and spinal malignancies (cancers).[62] When viewing spinal radiographs, normal bony anatomic structures resemble the face of an owl. (The spinal pedicles resemble an owl's eyes and the spinous process resembles an owl's beak.) But when cancer erodes the bony spinal pedicle, the radiographic appearance changes such that now that eye of the owl seems missing or closed, which is called the "winking owl sign". Another common pattern is a "Scottie dog sign" on a spinal X-ray.[63]

 

In 2021, Foye again published in the medical literature on this topic, in a medical journal article called "Baby Yoda: Pareidolia and Patternicity in Sacral MRI and CT Scans".[64] Here, he introduced a novel way of visualizing the sacrum when viewing MRI magnetic resonance imaging and CT scans (computed tomography scans). He noted that in certain image slices the human sacral anatomy resembles the face of "Baby Yoda" (also called Grogu), a fictional character from the television show The Mandalorian. Sacral openings for exiting nerves (sacral foramina) resemble Baby Yoda's eyes, while the sacral canal resembles Baby Yoda's mouth.[65]

In popular culture

See also: Among Us § Memes and mods

Many Internet memes about the online game Among Us exploit pareidolia, by showing everyday items (in this case, a trashcan) that look similar to characters from the game.

 

In January 2017, an anonymous user placed an eBay auction of a Cheeto that looked like the gorilla Harambe. Bidding began at US$11.99, but the Cheeto was eventually sold for US$99,000.[66]

 

Starting from 2021, an Internet meme emerged around the online game Among Us, where users presented everyday items such as dogs, statues, garbage cans, big toes, and pictures of the Boomerang Nebula that looked like the game's "crewmate" protagonists.[67][68] In May 2021, an eBay user named Tav listed a Chicken McNugget shaped like a crewmate from Among Us for online auction. The Chicken McNugget was sold for US$99,997 to an anonymous buyer.[69]

Related phenomena

 

A shadow person (also known as a shadow figure, shadow being or black mass) is often attributed to pareidolia. It is the perception of a patch of shadow as a living, humanoid figure, particularly as interpreted by believers in the paranormal or supernatural as the presence of a spirit or other entity.[70]

 

Pareidolia is also what some skeptics believe causes people to believe that they have seen ghosts.[71]

See also

 

Clustering illusion – Erroneously seeing patterns in randomness

Conspiracy theory – Attributing events to improbable causes (another example of apophenia)

Eigenface – Set of eigenvectors used in the computer vision problem of human face recognition

Hitler teapot – Kettle perceived to resemble Adolf Hitler

Madonna of the Toast – 2007 book about pareidolia

Mondegreen – Misinterpretation of a spoken phrase

Musical ear syndrome – similar to auditory pareidolia, but with hearing loss

Optical illusion – Visually perceived images that differ from objective reality

Perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena

Signal-to-noise ratio – Ratio of the desired signal to the background noise

 

References

 

"pareidolia". Lexico US English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 16 January 2020.

"pareidolia". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 6 December 2020.

Jaekel, Philip (29 January 2017). "Why we hear voices in random noise". Nautilus. Retrieved 1 April 2017.

Bauman, Neil (9 July 2015). "Apophenia, Audio Pareidolia and Musical Ear Syndrome".

Taubert, Jessica; Wardle, Susan G.; Flessert, Molly; Leopold, David A.; Ungerleider, Leslie G. (2017). "Face Pareidolia in the Rhesus Monkey". Current Biology. 27 (16): 2505–2509.e2. Bibcode:2017CBio...27E2505T. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2017.06.075. ISSN 0960-9822. PMC 5584612. PMID 28803877.

Rosen, Rebecca J. (7 August 2012). "Pareidolia: A Bizarre Bug of the Human Mind Emerges in Computers". The Atlantic.

Kahlbaum, Karl Ludwig (1866). "Die Sinnesdelirien". Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie und psychisch-gerichtliche Medizin. 23: 1–86.

[1] Sibbald, M.D. "Report on the Progress of Psychological Medicine; German Psychological Literature", The Journal of Mental Science, Volume 13. 1867. p. 238

Kurumada, Kentaro; Sugiyama, Atsuhiko; Hirano, Shigeki; Yamamoto, Tatsuya; Yamanaka, Yoshitaka; Araki, Nobuyuki; Yakiyama, Masatsugu; Yoshitake, Miki; Kuwabara, Satoshi (2021). "Pareidolia in Parkinson's Disease and Multiple System Atrophy". Parkinson's Disease. 2021: 2704755. doi:10.1155/2021/2704755. ISSN 2090-8083. PMC 8572613. PMID 34754412.

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Hadjikhani, Nouchine; Kveraga, Kestutis; Naik, Paulami; Ahlfors, Seppo P. (2009). "Early (M170) activation of face-specific cortex by face-like objects". NeuroReport. 20 (4): 403–07. doi:10.1097/WNR.0b013e328325a8e1. PMC 2713437. PMID 19218867.

Voss, J. L.; Federmeier, K. D.; Paller, K. A. (2012). "The Potato Chip Really Does Look Like Elvis! Neural Hallmarks of Conceptual Processing Associated with Finding Novel Shapes Subjectively Meaningful". Cerebral Cortex. 22 (10): 2354–64. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhr315. PMC 3432238. PMID 22079921.

Thome, Ina; Hohmann, Daniela M.; Zimmermann, Kristin M.; Smith, Marie L.; Kessler, Roman; Jansen, Andreas (2022). ""I Spy with my Little Eye, Something that is a Face…": A Brain Network for Illusory Face Detection". Cerebral Cortex. 32 (1): 137–157. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhab199. PMID 34322712.

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"Dog Tips – Emotions in Canines and Humans". Partnership for Animal Welfare. Archived from the original on 17 November 2015. Retrieved 3 July 2010.

Bellemare‐Pepin, Antoine; Jerbi, Karim (24 December 2024). "Divergent Perception: Framing Creative Cognition Through the Lens of Sensory Flexibility". The Journal of Creative Behavior. doi:10.1002/jocb.1525. ISSN 0022-0175.

Lee, Joanne (2016). I See Faces: popular pareidolia and the proliferation of meaning. In Materiality and Popular Culture. Routledge. pp. 105–118. ISBN 9780367878177.

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Berenbaum, May (2009). The earwig's tail: a modern bestiary of multi-legged legends. Harvard University Press. pp. 72–73. ISBN 978-0-674-03540-9.

Abrahams, Marc (16 March 2004). "Tiny tall tales: Marc Abrahams uncovers the minute, but astonishing, evidence of our fossilised past". The Guardian. London.

Conner, Susan; Kitchen, Linda (2002). Science's most wanted: the top 10 book of outrageous innovators, deadly disasters, and shocking discoveries. Brassey's. p. 93. ISBN 978-1-57488-481-4.

Miller, Ross (14 July 2015). "Pluto the dog can, like, totally be seen on Pluto the dwarf planet". The Verge. Retrieved 30 July 2020.

"Pluto's icy heart makes winds blow | EarthSky.org". earthsky.org. 9 February 2020. Retrieved 30 July 2020.

Gary (15 July 2015). "Pluto annotated (by xkcd)". D Gary Grady. Retrieved 30 July 2020.

Rogowitz, Bernice E.; Voss, R. (1 October 1990). Rogowitz, Bernice E.; Allebach, Jan P. (eds.). "Shape perception and low-dimension fractal boundary contours". Human Vision and Electronic Imaging: Models, Methods, and Applications. 1249. SPIE: 387–394. doi:10.1117/12.19691. S2CID 120313118.

Keller, Erin (9 October 2024). "Hurricane Milton Satellite Image Shows 'Creepy' Skull Shape". Newsweek. Retrieved 19 November 2024.

[2] Kitchin, C. R. Astrophysical Techniques, Sixth Edition. Taylor & Francis (2013). ISBN 9781466511156 p. 3

Lane, K. Maria. Geographies of Mars: Seeing and Knowing the Red Planet. University of Chicago Press (2011). p. 52-63. ISBN 9780226470788

Harley, Timothy (1885). Moon Lore, London; Swan Sonnenschein, Le Bas & Lowry. p. 21.

Evans, Ben (2010). Foothold in the Heavens: The Seventies. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 143. ISBN 1441963421.

Xueting Christine Ni (2018). From Kuan Yin to Chairman Mao: The Essential Guide to Chinese Deities. Red Wheel/Weiser. pp. 40–43. ISBN 1578636256.

Smith, Michael (2012). The Aztecs (3rd ed.). Chichester, West Sussex; Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons. p. 200. ISBN 978-1-4051-9497-6.

Baring-Gould, Sabine. "The Man in the Moon", Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, London. Rivington's, 1877, p. 190Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.

Harrison, Charles (c. 1884). The Hydah mission, Queen Charlotte's Islands. An account of the mission and people, with a descriptive letter from the Rev. Charles Harrison. p. 20 – via University of British Columbia Library.

Šmits, Pēteris (1936). "Latvian folktales and legends (Latviešu pasakas un teikas) Vol. 13". Latviešu valodas resursi. Valters un Rapa. Retrieved 27 October 2023. "Legends from 8 to 14 cover different variations of this legend. (Latvian language only)"

Zusne, Leonard; Jones, Warren H (1989). Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp. 77–79. ISBN 978-0-8058-0508-6. Retrieved 6 April 2007.

"1954 series". www.bankofcanada.ca. Retrieved 29 June 2023.

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. 3.3.367-73

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Da Vinci, Leonardo (1923). John, R; Don Read, J (eds.). "Note-Books Arranged And Rendered Into English". Empire State Book Co.

"Nostalgic image still fascinates, a hundred years on". Wales Online. Media Wales Ltd. 15 October 2010.

"Salem painting memories on show at Gwynedd Museum". BBC Wales News. BBC. 29 June 2013.

"Niğde Alaaddin Camii 'nin Kapısındaki Kadın Silüetinin Sırrı?". Nevşehir Kentrehberim (in Turkish). 2011. Retrieved 21 April 2019.

"Camiler, ALÂEDDİN CAMİ". Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı (in Turkish). Retrieved 21 April 2019.

"HISTORICAL MONUMENTS OF NIGDE". World Heritage Academy. 2013. Archived from the original on 14 May 2021. Retrieved 21 April 2019.

"DİVRİĞİ ULU CAMİİ'NDE 'NAMAZ KILAN İNSAN' SİLÜETİ". Haberler (in Turkish). 14 July 2014. Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 21 April 2019.

Schweber, Nate (23 July 2012). "In New Jersey, a Knot in a Tree Trunk Draws the Faithful and the Skeptical". The New York Times. p. 16. Retrieved 21 April 2019.

Ibrahim, Yahaya (2 January 2011). "In Maiduguri, a tree with engraved name of God turns spot to a Mecca of sorts". Sunday Trust. Abuja. Archived from the original on 4 November 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2012.

Ng, Hui Hui (13 September 2007). "Monkey See, Monkey Do?". The New Paper. pp. 12–13. Archived from the original on 14 October 2007. Retrieved 21 April 2019.

"'Virgin Mary' toast fetches $28,000". BBC News. BBC. 23 November 2004. Retrieved 27 October 2006.

Emery, David (2 September 2018). "Does the Devil's Face Appear in the Smoke on 9/11?". ThoughtCo. Archived from the original on 21 April 2019. Retrieved 21 April 2019.

Moye, David (17 April 2019). "People Claim To See Jesus In Flames Engulfing Notre Dame Cathedral". Huffington Post. Retrieved 21 April 2019 – via Yahoo! Lifestyle.

Sheen, Mercedes; Jordan, Timothy R. (July 2016). "Believing is Seeing: A Perspective on Perceiving Images of Objects on the Shroud of Turin". Archive for the Psychology of Religion. 38 (2): 232–251. doi:10.1163/15736121-12341320. ISSN 0084-6724. S2CID 147803332.

Sheen, Mercedes; Jordan, Timothy R. (December 2015). "Effects of Contextual Information on Seeing Pareidolic Religious Inscriptions on an Artifact: Implications for the Shroud of Turin". Perception. 44 (12): 1427–1430. doi:10.1177/0301006615607156. ISSN 0301-0066. PMID 26562867. S2CID 27845771.

Chalup, Stephan K., Kenny Hong, and Michael J. Ostwald. "Simulating pareidolia of faces for architectural image analysis." brain 26.91 (2010): 100.

Vokey, John R.; Read, J. Don (1985). "Subliminal messages: Between the devil and the media". American Psychologist. 40 (11): 1231–9. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.40.11.1231. PMID 4083611. S2CID 15819412.

Deutsch, D. (1995). "Musical Illusions and Paradoxes". Philomel Records.

Deutsch, D. (2003). "Phantom Words and Other Curiosities". Philomel Records.

Foye, P; Abdelshahed, D; Patel, S (July 2014). "Musculoskeletal pareidolia in medical education". The Clinical Teacher. 11 (4): 251–3. doi:10.1111/tct.12143. PMID 24917091. S2CID 206318208.

Hacking, Craig (28 October 2020). "Scottie dog sign (spine)". radiopedia.com. Retrieved 2 November 2021.

Foye, PM; Koger, TJ; Massey, HR (February 2021). "Baby Yoda: Pareidolia and Patternicity in Sacral MRI and CT Scans". PM&R: The Journal of Injury, Function, and Rehabilitation. 13 (2): 217–218. doi:10.1002/pmrj.12496. PMID 32969166. S2CID 221887340.

Foye, Patrick (20 February 2021). "Baby Yoda: Pareidolia and Patternicity in Sacral MRI and CT Scans | Tailbone Doctor". tailbonedoctor.com. Retrieved 21 February 2021.

"Burbank man sells Harambe-shaped Cheeto for nearly $100K on eBay". ABC7. KABC Television LLC. ABC News. 8 February 2017. Retrieved 16 August 2023.

Kennedy, Victoria Phillips (18 April 2021). "Among Us Everywhere: Things That Look Like Among Us Crewmates". Screen Rant. Retrieved 16 August 2023.

Adams, Robert N. (8 February 2022). "The Coldest Spot in Space Looks Like an Among Us Crewmate". TechRaptor. Retrieved 16 August 2023.

Kooser, Amanda (3 June 2021). "McDonald's chicken nugget shaped like Among Us crewmate fetching $100,000 on eBay". CNET. Red Ventures. Archived from the original on 3 February 2023. Retrieved 24 January 2023.

Ahlquist, Diane (2007). The Complete Idiot's Guide to Life After Death. US: Penguin Group. p. 122. ISBN 978-1-59257-651-7.

 

Carroll, Robert Todd (June 2001). "pareidolia". skepdic.com. Retrieved 19 September 2007.

 

External links

Look up pareidolia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Pareidolia

at Wikipedia's sister projects

 

Definitions from Wiktionary

Media from Commons

Data from Wikidata

 

Skepdic.com Skeptic's Dictionary definition of pareidolia

A Japanese museum of rocks which look like faces

Article in The New York Times, 13 February 2007, about cognitive science of face recognition

Article in Scientific American, 25 March 2022, "Does This Look like a Face to You?"

 

vte

 

Hidden messages

Main

 

Subliminal message

 

Audio

 

Backmasking

list Hidden track

list pregap list Phonetic reversal Reverse speech

 

Numeric

 

Chronogram Numerology Theomatics Bible code Cryptology

 

Visual

 

Fnord Hidden text Paranoiac-critical method Pareidolia Psychorama Sacred geometry Steganography Visual cryptography

 

Other

 

Apophenia Asemic writing Clustering illusion Cryptic crossword

Anagram Easter egg Observer-expectancy effect Pattern recognition Palindrome Simulacrum Synchronicity Unconscious mind

 

Categories:

 

Pareidolia1860s neologismsAuditory illusionsCognitive biasesOptical illusionsVisual perception

   

Never thought I would get to punch buttons on a real German WWII Enigma machine!

 

Get a Free Print - See Profile

From: File Unit: Letters from Mrs. Rose O'Neal Greenhow, Also Notes, etc., in Her Handwriting (Record Group 59)

 

Created by: Department of State. (09/1789 - )

 

Subjects:

Greenhow, Rose O'Neal, 1817-1864

 

Persistent URL: research.archives.gov/description/1634036

 

Repository: National Archives at College Park - Archives II (College Park, MD)

   

Access Restrictions: Unrestricted

Use Restrictions: Unrestricted

 

QR Code abstract geometric permutation op art from monochromeandminimal project Pietern - 3d minimal

 

AT&T TSD-3600E Telephone Security Device, an encrypting telephone from 1993 based on the controversial Clipper Chip

 

The Clipper chip was the flagship component of a controversial National Security Agency-designed "key escrow" cryptography scheme, in which intercepted encrypted traffic could be decrypted easily by law enforcement or intelligence agencies for surveillance purposes. The program was extremely controversial and, in the end, not a success. Aside from the obvious fundamental problems (the security risks of having a large database of citizen's keys, the need to implement cryptography in expensive secret hardware, etc), the Clipper architecture had technical flaws that made it possible to circumvent the escrow features and preclude the possibility of law enforcement access. (See "Protocol Failure in the Escrowed Encryption Standard" [pdf format], for details.)

 

AT&T (my employer at the time) was the first (and ultimately only) company to produce a product based on the ill-fated system. The AT&T TSD-3600, announced in 1992, was a voice encryption device designed to be installed in a standard telephone (between the phone base and the handset). Calls placed to other TSD-3600-equipped telephones could be automatically digitized (at 4800bps) and encrypted, making eavesdropping on the conversation (by legal or illegal means) effectively infeasible. When the US government learned of AT&T's plans to market the device, it worried that criminals might used them to thwart wiretaps. Plans for a new encryption system with a wiretap backdoor were hurriedly drawn up by the NSA, and AT&T was persuaded to replace the regular (non-escrowed) DES-based encryption scheme in the original TSD product with the new system, called the Clipper chip. The Clipper-based model TSD-3600E hit the market in 1993. As incentive for AT&T's cooperation, the government agreed to purchase a significant quantity of Clipper-equipped TSD-3600Es, which sold for over $1000 each in quantity.

 

Hobbled by the controversial key escrow features and the high retail price, the government ended up being the TSD's only major customer, and even most of the units they bought sat unopened in storage for over ten years. AT&T, for its part, eventually sold off the division that produced the product.

 

I'm aware of five different TSD-3600 models produced between 1992 and the product's cancellation, differing in the cipher algorithm used. The TSD-3600D was the original, using standard DES with a 56 bit key. (These were quickly recalled and disappeared from the market after Clipper was announced). The 3600F was an exportable model that used a proprietary 40 bit cipher that, I was told, was "embarassingly" weak even given the short key. The 3600P used a proprietary 56 bit cipher similar to DES (but not inter-operable with the 3600D). The 3600E was the first controversial key escrowed model, with the then-classified Skipjack cipher and key escrow features implemented on a tamper-resistant MYK-78T Clipper chip. A later model, the 3600S, included a Clipper chip but would also downgrade (or upgrade, depending on your opinion of key escrow) to the F or P ciphers when communicating with those models. All five models use a Diffie-Hellman key exchange (768 bit, if I recall correctly) to establish a session key, a 4 character hash of which is displayed on each unit's LCD. To detect "man-in-the-middle" attacks, users could verify (by voice) that their displayed hashes matched.

 

This photo shows the TSD with an optional acoustic coupler and handset, allowing its use with virtually any telephone. The device can also be wired directly to the telephone.

 

Rodenstock Gerogon 240mm/9, Sinar P, BetterLight Super 6K-HS. Full resolution (6000x8000) version available.

 

Disclaimer: No emulsions were harmed in the making of this image.

These wheels belong to a cryptoanalytic device called The Bombe used in Bletchley Park to crack the code of the Enigma cipher machine.

 

The Bombe has been developed by Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman based on a earlier Polish development called bomba kryptologiczna (this is where the name The Bombe comes from).

 

The Bombe utilizes the fact that the Enigma is an involutory device, i.e. the relations between letters in the plain text and the cipher text are reciprocal so that a letter A in the plaintext associated with B in the ciphertext is the same as B in the plaintext associated with A in the ciphertext. Using this fact together with the knowledge about the way the Enigma works, The Bombe is able to exclude wrong settings of the Enigma parameters by comparing the ciphertext with a piece of plaintext (called crib) which is assumed to be included in the message. Hence, after The Bombe has been set up with a menu derived from the ciphertext and the crib, the device performs an exhaustive search until the Enigma setup has been found which has been used for encrypting the cipher text.

 

The depicted device is a reconstruction of The Bombe, created in Bletchley Park within the Bombe Rebuild Project.

 

view on black

What may look like a inconspicuous typewriter in a wooden box is actually the legendary Enigma cipher machine.

 

The enigma is a electro-mechanical rotor machine, which can be used for the encryption and decryption of secret text messages. Initially the Enigma was a commercially used ciphering machine which has been patented in 1918 by Arthur Scherbius. Later versions of the Enigma used four scrambling devices (three rotors and a reflector) and an additional plugboard, and performed polyalphabetic substitution. Whenever a letter is typed, a different substitution letter is illuminated on the display. At the same time, the rotors are moved, which yields a different substitution for the next letter.

 

The Enigma was surely the most legendary ciphering device. However, it possessed some weak points, which could be found and exploited by the codebreakers of Bletchley Park to build an electromechanical device (The Bombe) for deciphering messages encrypted by different versions of Enigma machines.

 

view on black

just before shipping the first Signal integration today.

CONGRATS to Joshua Goldbard and his amazing tech team... real artists!

 

WIRED: "Signal has integrated support for the cryptocurrency MobileCoin, a form of digital cash designed to work efficiently on mobile devices while protecting users' privacy and even their anonymity. Marlinspike says Signal chose to integrate MobileCoin because it has the most seamless user experience on mobile devices, requiring little storage space on the phone and needing only seconds for transactions to be confirmed. Zcash or Monero payments, by contrast, take minutes to complete transactions. "You're using a cryptocurrency with state-of-the-art encryption, but from your perspective, it feels like Venmo," says MobileCoin's founder Josh Goldbard.

 

The mechanics of how MobileCoin works to ensure its transactions' privacy and anonymity are—even for the world of cryptocurrency—practically a Rube Goldberg machine in their complexity. Like Monero, MobileCoin uses a protocol called CryptoNote and a technique it integrates known as Ring Confidential Transactions to mix up users' transactions, which makes tracing them vastly far more difficult and also hides the amount of transactions. But like Zcash, it also uses a technique called zero-knowledge proofs—specifically a form of those mathematical proofs known as Bulletproofs—that can guarantee a transaction has occurred without revealing its value.

 

On top of all those techniques, MobileCoin takes advantage of the SGX feature of Intel processors, which is designed to allow a server to run code that even the server's operator can't alter. MobileCoin uses that feature to ensure that servers in its network are deleting all lingering information about the transactions they carry out after the fact and leave only a kind of cryptographic receipt that proves the transaction occurred.”

 

The Verge: "Signal announced on Tuesday it’s now testing a new peer-to-peer payments system in the beta version of its apps. Appropriately called Signal Payments, the new feature right now supports only one protocol: the MobileCoin wallet and its companion cryptocurrency MOB. MobileCoin’s design means Signal does not have access to your balance, full transaction history, or funds. You can also transfer your funds at any time if you want to switch to another app or service.”

wrhstol.com/2goBKnZ

In 1936, Alan Turing went to Princeton University in America, returning to England in 1938. He began to work secretly part-time for the British cryptanalytic department, the Government Code and Cypher School. On the outbreak of war he took up full-time work at its headquarters, Bletchley Park.

 

Here he played a vital role in deciphering the messages encrypted by the German Enigma machine, which provided vital intelligence for the Allies.

 

He took the lead in a team that designed a machine known as a bombe that successfully decoded German messages. He became a well-known and rather eccentric figure at Bletchley.