The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography, Simon Singh

I read this book in a marathon session of two and a half days, partially because it's so engaging, and partially because I have been obsessed with secret codes and ciphers since I was old enough to read. There are chapters on the Enigma Machine in WWII (Bletchley Park and Alan Turing, Ultra and Purple), Navajo Code Talkers in the Pacific, the men and women who deciphered hieroglyphics and Linear B, and how internet encryption was invented and works.

Then there are chapters on the idea of 'quantum computers' and 'quantum encryption,' and y'all, I'm only so smart. Some things are just beyond me. And I quote:

Superpositionalists argue along the following lines. If we do not know what a particle is doing, then it is allowed to do everything possible simultaneously. In the case of the photon, we do not know whether it passed through the left slit or the right slit, so we assume it passed through both slits simultaneously... For readers who feel uncomfortable with superposition, there is the second quantum camp... Unfortunately, this alternative view is equally bizarre. The many-worlds interpretation claims that upon leaving the filament the photon has two choices - either it passes through the left slit or the right slit - at which point the universe divides in to two universes, and in one universe the photon goes through the left slit, and in the other universe the photon goes through the right slit. The two universes somehow interfere with each other, which accounts for the striped pattern.

I just... What?

Basically this book was designed exactly for me, and has the huge advantage of being really, really well written. Now I'm off to find copies of his other books (neither of which are about coding) and most of the books in the annotated bibliography.