The abstract world of Mathematics and code breaking in wartime seems far removed from the very human world of doctors and nurses who are literally immersed in the bodily fluids of the wounded. This presentation explores the interdependence behind the apparently very separate stories of code breakers like Bill Tutte whose success relied on absolute secrecy and doctors and nurses who also broke wartime codes, in a very different way, by writing their accounts in forbidden diaries, and whose lives, unknowingly, converge in July 1944 - D-Day
Carol Acton
Carol Acton is Associate Professor of English at St Jerome's University. Her research focuses on war writing with a particular interest in how war is expressed through autobiographical accounts of the participants. She is currently coauthoring (with Dr Jane Potter) a book on breakdown and resilience in accounts by medical personnel in war zones from the First World War to the current war in Iraq.
Steven Furino
Steven Furino is a Lecturer in the Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo. He is a winner of the University's Distinguished Teaching Award. He has developed courses in the history of mathematics both for classroom and online offerings.
St. Jerome's University
Canadian Mathematical Society