Internationally Known Author Simon Singh 
to Spend Week at Centenary, Give Public Attaway Lecture on Thursday, April 4

SHREVEPORT, LA -- "Cracking the Cipher Challenge" will be the topic when bestselling author Simon Singh of London, England, speaks twice at Centenary College on Thursday, April 4.

The public program, free and open to the public, will be held at 7 p.m. in Kilpatrick Auditorium, which is located in the Smith Building on the corner of Kings Highway and Woodlawn Street. Earlier the same day, Singh will address a First-Year Experience convocation for Centenary students.

In The Code Book, Singh provided 10 coded messages for readers to crack, with a prize of $15,000 for the first person to crack all of them.  He will talk about this "cipher challenge," how he coded the messages, and how they were cracked.  

Along the way, he will reveal the history of codes and codebreaking and discuss encryption in the Information Age: How secure are your emails? How safe are your credit cards on the Internet? What are the implications of an unbreakable code?

Singh earned a Ph.D. in particle physics from Cambridge University before joining the BBC as a director and producer for television documentaries.  As an author, he has produced two bestsellers, Fermat's Enigma and The Code Book. He now presents programs on British television and radio, including the popular Science of Secrecy series.  

Singh comes to Centenary as an Attaway Fellow.  The Attaway fellowships, endowed by the late Douglas and Marion Attaway, bring to the campus people who have made extraordinary contributions to the public discussion of ideas. 

He will visit with students in both formal and informal meetings and will make presentations in conjunction with the college's First-Year Experience program for students who are new to Centenary.
 

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