The 2006 Sehnert Lecturer

Brian Winkel

Professor of Mathematics
Department of Mathematical Sciences
United State Military Academy at West Point
Editor of the Journals, PRIMUS and Cryptologia

Professor Brian Winkel is the Editor-in-Chief and a Founding Editor of Cryptologia, a journal devoted to all aspects of cryptology. He is also Editor-in-Chief and Founding Editor of PRIMUS-Problems, Resources, and Issues in Mathematics Undergraduate Studies, a journal devoted to all aspects of teaching undergraduate mathematics. He is senior faculty member in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY. He has taught in a liberal arts setting (Albion College), an engineering setting (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology), and now a military setting (West Point). Originally schooled in Noetherian rings (PhD Indiana University, 1971) his real passion is mathematics applied. He enjoys teaching a modeling and technology approach to learning mathematics.

This talk will present some strategies for busting cryptograms and then move on to discuss several methods of busting ciphers from literary sources using counting and statistical approaches. Cryptology, the study of making and breaking ciphers, offers rich historical and mathematical material for study, and we shall touch on both.

The annual James Sehnert Lecture was established in memory of, and endowed by the estate of, the late Professor James “Duke” Sehnert, a member of the NKU Department of Mathematics and Computer Science from 1970 to 1999.