MAS345   Codes and Cryptography   (10 credits)

Description

The word 'code' is used in two different ways. The ISBN code of a book is designed in such a way that simple errors in recording it will not produce the ISBN of a different book. This is an example of an 'error-correcting code' (more accurately, an error-detecting code). On the other hand, we speak of codes which encrypt information - a topic of vital importance to the transmission of sensitive financial information across the internet. These two ideas, here labelled 'Codes' and 'Cryptography', each depend on elegant pure mathematical ideas: codes on linear algebra and cryptography on number theory. This course explores these topics, including the real-life applications and the mathematics behind them.

Reading List