- The Enigma Collection is meant to be a Web portal for information about the German cipher machine Enigma in all it variations. In the beginning this Web page should be seen as a kind of note board where I post information when my time and energy allows me to do so. Later on, the page hopefully will take on a more definitive form and perhaps it will even be more pleasing to the eye. For the time being the most important issue is to have a place where I can publish my Enigma notes. At the moment I am working on a detailed history of the Enigma and when this will be published, hopefully next year, I plan to publish here many of my research notes and other documents.
- Alcor (stars.astro.illinois.edu)
ALCOR (80 Ursae Majoris). Alcor, forever tied to Mizar, is hardly ever spoken of unless as “Mizar and Alcor,” a naked eye double in the tail of Ursa Major that are 11.8 minutes of arc apart and that the Arabs referred to as the “horse and rider.”
- How did the Enigma Machine work? (youtube.com)
Let’s use 3D animation to go inside the Enigma Machine! The Enigma Machine was used during WWII by the German Army to get keep messages encrypted. It looks almost like a typewriter. There are 26 keys and 26 letters that can light up. These lights tell you how the keys will be scrambled up. The machine works like an electrical circuit. The rotors towards the back of the machine do most of the scrambling by mixing up the wiring. The plugboard in the front also another layer of encryption. Keyboard mechanism connects or disconnects the circuit to turn on a lightbulb. The path of the wire is difficult to follow so I recommend following it through in 3D! Each time a key is released - the rotors in the back will turn. This is done by the mechanism which includes the actuator bar, ratchet, pawl, and the index wheels.