Rating: 
Summary: In many ways, Sarah is just another teenage girl.
Review: As the father of three children about to iterate into their teen years, I often cringe when I see what they view as inspiration from the media. Sometimes, I really have to press them to read books and challenge their minds. One thing that we have done for years is have what we call questions after supper is done. I ask them questions about many different things, although we concentrate on geography, history and mathematics. The mathematics questions are generally in the form of a puzzle and we have covered basic proof techniques such as the pigeonhole principle. On several occasions, they have explained the solutions to mathematics problems by citing and explaining the pigeonhole principle.
Therefore, I was overjoyed when I read this book about Sarah Flannery, who won Ireland's Young Scientist of the Year in 1999. She won it for her work in cryptography for use over the Internet and she credits much of her success to all of the puzzles that she was given to solve by her parents. Sarah is obviously a bright girl, but what is most impressive about the book is how ordinary she claims to be. Outside of her mathematical success, Sarah is very much a regular girl with normal interests. There is no hint of her being forced into mathematics and she wears a Teflon coat concerning any label equivalent to nerd.
The book is also very well written, I was fascinated by her story, even sneaking in a few pages during a session at a math conference. It is a story about success, which just happens to be in mathematics. While basic knowledge of congruences is necessary to understand everything, you will enjoy this book even if you have never heard of a congruence. Sarah's story is an inspiration to all people, it keeps your interest and you cannot help but wish her great success in her life, whatever she ultimately decides to do.
Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission.
Rating:
Summary: Calls FBI's Bluff
Review: "Doing math" means reducing the form of a system. The Flannerys reveal public key encryption for what it is - an incompetent con job at best or parahoid showing - off. The "intelligence community" has conned politicians, for fat paychecks and deep, adoring bows. Nobody in his right mind needs public keys. What the world needs is Sarah Flannery and her dad, because this delightful book is just the beginning. I think it's an Irish saying that "If you understand the question you want to ask, why then you already know the answer." Sarah finds questions.
You need to read about the blackboard on the kitchen table. Do puzzles. Think things through.
Comic page puzzles are, rightly, the province of senior citizens; keeping your mind alive is job # one.
The lesson in code-breaking is not mathematics at all. The plain message of Canaris vs. Turing is that people running the world are stupid bigots. When you get down to it.
Rating:
Summary: Pure genius at work
Review: A young Irishwoman's account of the mathematical studies that made her Young Scientist of the Year. Flannery, now a first-year student at Cambridge, grew up solving logic puzzles posed by her father, a math teacher (and her collaborator here). In the beginning chapters, she offers the reader a selection of those brainteasers, many of which depend on mathematical reasoning. So when her high school science teacher recruited her to enter Ireland's Young Scientist competition, Sarah's father steered her toward a project with a strong math basis: cryptography, the encoding and decoding of messages. This once-cumbersome process is now handled by sophisticated computer programs based on number theory-especially the factoring of very large numbers. Sarah decided to concentrate on the programming aspect, to give herself hands-on experience with the computer work. But first she had to learn the relevant mathematics. To bring the reader up to speed, the authors step back from Sarah's story to present the mathematical foundations of modern cryptology: prime numbers, factoring, and other arcana of number theory. This section is in many ways the meat of the story, accessible to anyone not totally allergic to equations. As Sarah learned the math, she spotted an alternative to the standard RSA algorithm on which modern cryptology is based, and soon her project turned into an exposition of her new method-which in time won her honors as Young Scientist of the Year not only in Ireland, but in all of Europe. The latter chapters tell of the competitions, her preparation and her bouts of nerves, her genuine surprise at winning, and the sometimes-exasperating aftermath as the media discovered her and turned her (for a while, at least) into a celebrity. A charming story, well worth slogging through the heavy loads of math
Rating:
Summary: Nice book. Cute and interesting
Review: As an engineer, I was amused by what puzzles I solved and which I didn't in the early part of the book. Been a long time since I've done puzzles.
For example, I didn't get the sprinter one, because I knew that sprinters accelerate, then decelerate through their run in unpredictable ways. So the real answer is very unlikely to be 81. In fact, it's almost certain that it isn't 81 under the conditions stated in the puzzle. That's the problem with mixing math and the real world too closely.
The strongbox puzzle seemed silly, though I knew that it had some trick answer. Because I know Russia and the obvious thing to really do. Just ship the box, locked, call Natasha in St. Petersburg and tell her to cut the lock off. Simple.
But hey, that's what an engineering career will do to you.
Nice book. Begorrah, made me want to go back to me Irish roots it did.
Rating: 
Summary: Chapter 2 alone is worth the purchase price
Review: Flannery is the young Irish girl who made international news at the age of 16, when her high-school science fair project - a new cryptographic system which she had developed during a high school work term - was featured on the front page of the Times. I think much of this book contains some fairly heavy math, although it's difficult for me to tell. (I have a Master's degree in this very subject, so I was already familiar with everything she discussed, but others may find it heavy going.)However, IMO, Chapter 2 alone is worth the price of the book, as it contains a list of Sarah's favourite math puzzles and gives invaluable insight into how her father, a mathematics professor, managed to instil such a phenomenal love of math and science in his children. If you have young children, and you want to inspire them to be successful later in life, you really owe it to yourself - if not to your kids - to read this book. See also "Math Power: How to Help Your Child Love Math, Even If You Don't" by Patricia Clark Kenschaft (unfortunately, this book is out of print, but it would be an excellent companion book to this one)
Rating: 
Summary: 341 Pages, one MAJOR fact left off the cover
Review: I am appalled to find out, after reading this book, that the much touted algorithm has already been cracked. If you are looking for a book about a high schooler, and her (father's?) journey through hype and a high school science project, then this may be the book for you. But it is NOT what I was looking for. It is NOT a book about Crypri algorithms, and strengths and weaknesses. It's not a mathematical journey, as it was touted to be. I will be returning this book, as I feel that it was [wrong] to sell this book without *prominently* disclosing that the underlying algorithm which created Flannery's fame was subsequently determined to be "Blarney". Burying this information inside the book (and requiring me to waste my time and money to find it) is [wrong] in my opinion. Move along - this book isn't worth your time from a mathematics perspective. From a human interest perspective, maybe. But don't pass it off as a "Mathematical Journey" - it's a human interest story. This was a waste of my time and money.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for encouraging promising young mathematicians
Review: I first became interested in cryptography in 2004 after I studied and taught the subject in an academic summer camp. We used "The Code Book" by Simon Singh as our text (which also happpens to be an excellent introduction to the history and methods of cryptography). After the course ended, I went searching for a book that I had heard mentioned in mathematical circles but never actually read myself. This book was "In Code." I finally got my hands on it during my Christmas vacation 2004, and I blazed through it in about two weeks!
As a graduate student in mathematics, the thing that excited me most about this book was Miss Flannery's account of her mathematical research. I had the privilege of doing a research project as an undergraduate math major. I have not come across a better description than hers about what it is like to be so consumed by a problem that you find yourself thinking about it and working on it almost constantly.
This book would be useful in inspiring high school and undergraduate students to study mathematics and to pursue mathematical research projects. If this 16-year-old girl from Ireland can do it, then surely they can do it - as long as they have an experienced mathematician/teacher to help them and encourage them along the way, just as David Flannery did for his daughter.
Rating:
Summary: A breath of fresh air in mathematics
Review: I have just recently finished this book and it is a true masterpiece but a delightful young woman who lets us (the viewer) travel into a world that we may never explore. The 16 year old, Sarah Flannery, has just recently become a worldknown scientist for her work on creating a new algoirthm which is 22 times faster than the norm. She lives in a family with an extensive background in mathematics and her resources, such as her father (co-writer) are close at hand. I am only 15 years old and, just because I am now doing work in multi variable calculus, does not mean I needed that background to understand and enjoy this book. I would recommend this to anyone who just wants to sit back, read, and learn a few things along the way about her quaint life and journey of mathematics.
Rating:
Summary: the true story
Review: I remember the media blitz of a few years ago about the teenaged Irish genius girl. It's good to hear in her own words how the whole thing unfolded. She says so herself, she's not some mathematical genius, she's just a smart kid that did a lot of hard work.
She relates everything in the book, from the start of her early interest in math thanks to her father's frequent puzzle challenges, to her hitting on the idea of the winning project, to how she made it come to fruition. It's a good example of how parental involvement in education, and not just sending the kids to school, can help the kids immensely.
There's a good amount of instructional math in the book for those who would like to learn a little about the base knowledge she had to learn to work with cryptography. You can also read her project paper in the back of the book.
Rating:
Summary: the true story
Review: I remember the media blitz of a few years ago about the teenaged Irish genius girl. It's good to hear in her own words how the whole thing unfolded. She says so herself, she's not some mathematical genius, she's just a smart kid that did a lot of hard work.
She relates everything in the book, from the start of her early interest in math thanks to her father's frequent puzzle challenges, to her hitting on the idea of the winning project, to how she made it come to fruition. It's a good example of how parental involvement in education, and not just sending the kids to school, can help the kids immensely.
There's a good amount of instructional math in the book for those who would like to learn a little about the base knowledge she had to learn to work with cryptography. You can also read her project paper in the back of the book.
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