In Code: A Mathematical Journey
Author: Sarah Flannery
In January 1999, Sarah Flannery, a sports-loving teenager from Blarney in County Cork, Ireland was awarded Ireland's Young Scientist of the Year for her extraordinary research and discoveries in Internet cryptography. The following day, her story began appearing in Irish papers and soon after was splashed across the front page of the London Times, complete with a photo of Sarah and a caption calling her "brilliant." Just 16, she was a mathematician with an international reputation.
In Code is a heartwarming story that will have readers cheering Sarah on. Originally published in England and co-written with her mathematician father, David Flannery, In Code is "a wonderfully moving story . . . about the thrill of the mathematical chase" (Nature) and "a paean to intellectual adventure" (Times Educational Supplement). A memoir in mathematics, it is all about how a girl next door, nurtured by her family, moved from the simple math puzzles that were the staple of dinnertime conversation to prime numbers, the Sieve of Eratosthenes, Fermat's Little Theorem, Googols-- and finally into her breathtaking algorithm. Parallel with each step is a modest girl's own self-discovery--her values, her burning curiosity, the joy of persistence, and, above all, her love for her family.
Nature - John L. Casti
...a book about the thrill of the mathematical chase, and how it is a game that anyone can play.
Irish Independent - John Daly
[In Code] removes much of the fear about that world of numbers that assault most of us who grapple with it.
Irish Post - John Crowley
In Code is also much more than a mathematical treatise, it's also a lesson in the human condition.
Times (London) - Victoria Neumark
Sarah's achievements are an inspiring reminder of the nurturing power of education.
Dublin Sunday Independent - Patricia Deevy
...a tale of an intellectual quest shared by a parent and a child ... a roadmap for living.
Daily Telegraph - Cassandra Jardine
[The Flannerys] succeeded in writing gripping howdunnit....By the end I was half-persuaded that I too could be a cryptologist.
Science News
This innovative text based on anecdotes and stimulating math puzzles... earned Sarah instant celebrity status and respect in the mathematics world.
Publishers Weekly
At 16, Flannery made worldwide headlines as Ireland's 1999 Young Scientist of the Year for her discovery and presentation of the Cayley-Purser algorithm, an innovative encryption system roughly 22 times faster than the worldwide standard RSA algorithm. She declines the "genius" label, and a method for cracking her algorithm has since been discovered, but this only makes the book more interesting and unpredictable. It's more about the journey's adventure than the destination and less about Sarah's specialness than her spirit. The mix is part memoir, part puzzle book and part mathematical exploration, with scattered bits of mathematical lore. (The heaviest math is concentrated into two chapters and the appendices, leaving the remainder easy going for the fainthearted.) The puzzle-solving approach to math cultivated by her father (and coauthor) encourages exploration, an adventurous attitude, attention to concepts more than calculations and sheer enjoyment of taking on a challenge. It's also more egalitarian than proof-based approaches, giving newcomers a more equal footing with old pros, emphasizing the process of discovery and making connections, which is more fundamental than finished proofs. All this is wonderfully illustrated by Flannery's own story of her rapidly developing interest and proficiency in cryptography, as well as by the puzzles she uses to get readers thinking and introduce some basic concepts. Other threads, running from brief descriptions of her grandparents to her father's teaching methods and her relationship to family in the face of a media frenzy, give her story added depth, warmth and humor. 8 pages of b&w photos. (June) Forecast: Workman is hoping to, and should, attract budding young mathematicians with a first printing of 35,000, a $65,000 marketing budget and an eight-city author tour. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Thomas Downey - KLIATT
Many high school students do not enjoy mathematics, based on their experiences with the subject. This book, however, is the story of a young woman, Sarah Flannery, at the other end of the spectrum: very interested in mathematics after many positive experiences with it while growing up. Written with help from her father, the memoir chronicles her early years solving puzzles posed by her father, her experiences competing in national and international science/mathematics fairs, and some of the aftereffects of her successes. It is an engaging story, well told, and is interspersed with discussions of the mathematics of cryptography (as well as some interesting math puzzles and problems in the early chapters). The writing is accessible to high school students, although some of the mathematics of cryptography that is discussed will require dedication and rereading to understand (the most difficult discussions are in appendices). Any student who has competed in a science or math fair can relate to Flannery's anxieties, but she demonstrates that study, thought and preparation can win the day. While the mathematics that she researched goes beyond the typical high school math curriculum, her story is not one of genius but rather of a very interested, motivated and capable young woman. I highly recommend this book for high school libraries. KLIATT Codes: SA-Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2002, Algonquin, 341p., Ages 15 to adult.
Booknews
Sarah Flannery, a student at Cambridge University, describes her passion for cryptography and how it led to her invention of an innovative algorithm for encoding data on the internet<-->an invention that caused her to be named European Young Scientist of the year and brought her awards in her native Ireland and in Europe. This book is written for a general audience. The co-author is her father, a mathematician affiliated with Ireland's Cork Institute of Technology. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Kirkus Reviews
A young Irishwoman's account of the mathematical studies that made her Young Scientist of the Year. Flannery, now a first-year student at Cambridge, grew up solving logic puzzles posed by her father, a math teacher (and her collaborator here). In the beginning chapters, she offers the reader a selection of those brainteasers, many of which depend on mathematical reasoning. So when her high school science teacher recruited her to enter Ireland's Young Scientist competition, Sarah's father steered her toward a project with a strong math basis: cryptography, the encoding and decoding of messages. This once-cumbersome process is now handled by sophisticated computer programs based on number theory—especially the factoring of very large numbers. Sarah decided to concentrate on the programming aspect, to give herself hands-on experience with the computer work. But first she had to learn the relevant mathematics. To bring the reader up to speed, the authors step back from Sarah's story to present the mathematical foundations of modern cryptology: prime numbers, factoring, and other arcana of number theory. This section is in many ways the meat of the story, accessible to anyone not totally allergic to equations. As Sarah learned the math, she spotted an alternative to the standard RSA algorithm on which modern cryptology is based, and soon her project turned into an exposition of her new method—which in time won her honors as Young Scientist of the Year not only in Ireland, but in all of Europe. The latter chapters tell of the competitions, her preparation and her bouts of nerves, her genuine surprise at winning, and the sometimes-exasperating aftermath as the mediadiscovered her and turned her (for a while, at least) into a celebrity. A charming story, well worth slogging through the heavy loads of math. First printing of 35,000; $65,000 ad/promo; author tour
Table of Contents:
| Foreword | vii | |
| Preface | ix | |
| Part I | Background | 1 |
| 1 | Early Influences | 3 |
| 2 | Early Challenges | 8 |
| 3 | Beginning My First Project | 32 |
| Part II | Mathematical Excursions | 41 |
| 4 | Dad's Evening Class | 43 |
| 5 | Of Prime Importance | 47 |
| 6 | The Arithmetic of Cryptography | 71 |
| 7 | Sums with a Difference | 113 |
| 8 | One Way Only | 149 |
| 9 | Public Key Cryptography | 164 |
| Part III | Exhibition Time | 187 |
| 10 | Young Scientist '98 | 189 |
| 11 | The Birth of a Project | 194 |
| 12 | Young Scientist '99 | 218 |
| Part IV | After-Math | 229 |
| 13 | Media Blitz | 231 |
| 14 | Around the World and Back | 254 |
| About This Book | 269 | |
| Appendix A | "Cryptography--A New Algorithm Versus the RSA" | 271 |
| Appendix B | Answers to Miscellaneous Questions | 297 |
| Appendix C | Euclid's Algorithm | 305 |
| Appendix D | The Euler [phis]-function and the Euler-Fermat Theorem | 315 |
| Acknowledgments | 320 | |
| Bibliography | 323 | |
| Index | 325 |
Look this: Environmental Politics and Policy or The End of the European Era
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