fonem ON THE BATTLEFIELD CODES CIPIWERS AND CARTOGRAPHY MATH GOES TO WAR Terry Burrows Lerner Publications Minneapolis
MATH AT WAR In June 1942 Japanese naval commanders saw a chance to destroy the US Navy in the Pacific Ocean Six months earlier the Japanese had attacked the US fleet at Pearl Harbor Japan planned to draw the remaining US ships into a trap The Japanese would launch a surprise attack at Midway Island But they did not know that the Americans were waiting for them US experts had cracked Japan's secret naval codes and knew the attack at Midway was coming An American torpedo On June 4 the United States attacked the bomber climbs away from a burning Japanese In the three day battle they sank Japanese ship during four Japanese aircraft carriers The Japanese the Battle of Midway navy never recovered from defeat the
American code breakers were mathematicians who changed the course of warfare Armies have always used codes to keep their plans secret from the enemy and the enemy has always tried to break those codes Mathematics is the basis of modern code breaking George Cayley's principles of flight led to the first powered flight by the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk North Carolina in 1903 RANGE OF USES Math has also had many other uses in military history Geometry or the study of shapes was the basis of navigation at sea Surveyors used geometry to map unknown territory With the development of artillery mathematics allowed gunners to figure out the range of targets In the late eighteenth century George Cayley used math to figure out the principles of flight In the late twentieth century math became the basis for all computers Computers became widely used in weaponry And military computers are likely to dramatically change warfare in the future as well 5
