Nancy, the only thing that's drifting through the old grey matter involved an actress, a pretty smart cookie. I'm probably way off course tho LOL. I need clues....

Annette

Hmmmm. I know that a lot of very smart people, some of them mathematicians, worked at Bletchley Park in England to break the Enigma code, but that doesn't exactly give me the answer to the question. I have a feeling that the answer might involve something that would have been, and still is, useful for deciphering codes or other complex patterns. Did John Von Neumann work on the project? I'll think some more ...

TM

Hmmm...actress doesn't ring any bells for me. I have read a lot about the Enigma machines and saw a film, but will wait for clues or ask Chuck when he gets home. I am turning into a hanger-on since he seems to know way more answers than I!

Cynthia

Annette - I haven't seen any actresses in my research - doesn't mean she's not there, though!! Cyn - let me know what Chuck thinks.
TM, John Von Neumann was more involved in Quantum mechcanics and nuclear technology - he was involved in the Manhattan Project....

Does the term bombe, or bomba mean anything to anyone??

I do have another name, but it may be a gimmee to TM, so will hold my cards close to my chest a little longer!! Yes, there is a clue in there.

Nancy.

The only Hollywood hint I can come up with is "Warning! Warning! That does not compute."

I must have hit the wrong button so here goes again. I haven't the faintest what the answer is. What I said had nothing to do with the Enigma Machine LOL. The actress, Heddy Lamarr was a pretty smart cookie, who would have thunk.

Me thinks I'm skunked on this one :(.

Annette

Good one, Lorna!! You are a smart cookie, too.

Nancy.

Interesting connection, Annette!!! She did do some very interesting work, post-war. Used by the US Navy in 1962, also recently by Wi-LAN, a local hi-tech company. Not sure what else to say!!!

Nancy.

Hey Lorna, guess what I'm making this afternoon, your recipe for Cape Breton Scones, YUM.

Annette

Lorna, that is exactly what Chuck thought! Good clue. He thought of Alan Turing...

Now, if only I could figure out a connection with scones...lol

Cynthia

Sorry to abandon you all - I just spent 4 1/2 hours on Skype with my AZ cousin, going through genealogy sites and transcriptions of hometown cemeteries - fun, really!!

Alan Turing, indeed - he was the name I was going to drop. I may need hint for the scones clue!! lol.

Nancy.

I'll be sticking with my first thought.

...and that was?? Not John Von Neumann, right??

Nancy.

Off topic: Annette, I hope you enjoy the scones. I made a batch last week. I used almost a whole jar of marmalade--slathered on the scones.

Another hint for the game...it is as plain on the nose on your face, right before your eyes. :-)

Yes, right before your eyes and at your fingertips.

That was ... something that would have been, and still is, useful for deciphering codes or other complex patterns.

Too vague?

You're looking for a thing that was created, not a person, right?

Hmmmmm, Something to do with a computer?

Lorna's scones, I just had to share LOL.

{{gwi:610010}}

Annette

Annette, I'd give you TEN stars just for the scones-yum! They look delicious, much better than the whole wheat toast I had this am.!

Yes, those scones look wonderful!

What a smart bunch - I fooled no one this time!!

{{gwi:610012}}Well, here it is - the ancestor of Big Blue. It really only had one function, to my knowledge, and that was to decipher Enigma messages. btw, bomba refers to the Polish machine, bombe refers to the English machine. It was developed in Poland initially, in the 30's by Polish mathematician-cryptologist Marian Rejewski. According to a top-secret U.S. Army report dated 15 June 1945, a machine called the "bombe" is used to expedite the solution. The first machine was built by the Poles and was a hand operated multiple enigma machine. When a possible solution was reached a part would fall off the machine onto the floor with a loud noise. Hence the name "bomba". Or that it made a crackling noise, like a dessert called a bombe glace. Either way, up to July 25, 1939, the Poles had been breaking Enigma messages for over six and a half years without telling their French and British allies. On December 15, 1938, two new rotors, IV and V, were introduced (three of the now five rotors being selected for use in the machine at a time). As Rejewski wrote in a 1979 critique of appendix 1, volume 1 (1979), of the official history of British Intelligence in the Second World War, "we quickly found the [wirings] within the [new rotors], but [their] introduction [...] raised the number of possible sequences of drums from 6 to 60 [...] and hence also raised tenfold the work of finding the keys. Thus the change was not qualitative but quantitative. We would have had to markedly increase the personnel to operate the bombs, to produce the perforated sheets. The initial design of the bombe was produced in 1939 at the UK Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park by Alan Turing, with an important refinement devised in 1940 by Gordon Welchman.

The bombe was an electro-mechanical device that replicated the action of several Enigma machines wired together. A standard German Enigma employed, at any one time, a set of three rotors each of which could be set in any of 26 positions. The standard British bombe contained thirty six Enigma-equivalents, each with three drums wired to produce the same scrambling effect as the Enigma rotors. A bombe could run two or three jobs simultaneously. Each job would have a menu that had to be run against a number of different wheel orders. If the menu contained 12 or fewer letters, three different wheel orders could be run on one bombe; if more than 12 letters, only two.

Colonel John Tiltman, who later became Deputy Director at Bletchley Park, visited the US Navy cryptanalysis office (OP-20-G) in April 1942 and recognised America's vital interest in deciphering U-boat traffic. The urgent need, doubts about the British engineering workload and slow progress, prompted the US to start investigating designs for a Navy bombe, based on the full blueprints and wiring diagrams received by US Naval Lieutenants Robert Ely and Joseph Eachus at Bletchley Park in July 1942. Funding for a full, $2 million, navy development effort was requested on 3 September 1942 and approved the following day. A contract was let with the National Cash Register Corporation (NCR) in Dayton, Ohio. This established the United States Naval Computing Machine Laboratory. Engineering development was led by NCR's Joseph Desch.

Whew, sorry, that's as short as I can make it!!
So, for Lorna, Thin Man, Annette, and Cyn:

Now, as to the actress, Hedy Lamarr, she was indeed a smart cookie. I will spare you here, but suggest you check out her biography. She was very much ahead of her time!!

Thanks for playing. Nancy.

Along the war theme, may I suggest trivia about American code talkers would be appropriate? Few Americans have any idea about the scope of the patriotism amongst Native Americans during the World Wars. The movie "Wind Talkers" has caused many people to have erroneous beliefs.

I agree Lorna - one of my supervisors at work is Mohawk. He has mentioned this to me, as well. Wind Talkers was one movie I didn't finish watching - sorry, I know a lot of people love Nicholas Cage - me, not so much. In Canada, as well, they fought in a much larger percentage than any other group. I fundraise for a charity that collects stories from veterans, and I spoke to a Chinese-Canadian who was talking about a reserve in British Columbia that had a very high percentage of volunteers. I'm going to look up that real story, Lorna.

Nancy.

Here is a link that might be useful: Aboriginal Canadians in the Second World War

Interesting story, Nancy. Thanks for researching it and dishing it out for us. I'm always interested in almost anything about WWII.

TM

Actually, Nancy, the end of "Wind Talkers" was very touching. I did like the movie, but I was shocked that people thought it was the whole story. It is only a fragment of the whole story. It was the same in the US during WWII, in terms of percentage, more Native Americans joined the armed forces than any other ethnic group in the US. You have to look up a few different articles on code talkers to get the scope. Some are not well written, and others have bias toward a particular tribe or nation.

Lorna - I guess I need to go back and see Wind Talkers again....

TM - seriously, did you already know, or did the initial post tell the tale? I am curious.

Thanks, Nancy.

There are a lot of details about the Bletchley Park operations that I forgot or never knew, like the word bombe. I guessed that the question had something to do with computers, because I knew that this was about the time that computers were being developed. When Cynthia brought up Alan Turing, I was pretty sure I was barking up the right tree.

TM

Thanks - the whole Bletchley Park thing is fascinating - I may milk it some more, one day!! I was pretty sure that Alan Turing would be a gimme for you.

Nancy.

I was so busy that I forgot to play last week and I actually knew this one. I've read and seen videos about Bletchley Park and my daughter in law visted there several years ago.