John Herivel

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John William Jamieson Herivel (29 August 1918 – 18 January 2011)[1] was a British science historian and World War II codebreaker at Bletchley Park.[2]

As a codebreaker concerned with Cryptanalysis of the Enigma, Herivel is remembered chiefly for the discovery of what was soon dubbed the Herivel tip or Herivelismus. Herivelismus consisted of the idea, the Herivel tip and the method of establishing whether it applied using the Herivel square.[3] It was based on Herivel's insight into the habits of German operators of the Enigma cipher machine that allowed Bletchley Park to easily deduce part of the daily key. For a brief but critical period after May 1940, the Herivel tip in conjunction with "cillies" (another class of operator error) was the main technique used to solve Enigma.

After the war, Herivel became an academic, studying the history and philosophy of science at Queen's University Belfast, particularly Isaac Newton, Joseph Fourier, Christiaan Huygens. In 1956, he took a brief leave of absence from Queen's to work as a scholar at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. In retirement, he wrote an autobiographical account of his work at Bletchley Park entitled Herivelismus and the German Military Enigma.[4]

  1. ^ Smith, Michael (13 February 2011), "John Herivel obituary: One of Bletchley Park's most brilliant wartime codebreakers", The Guardian, retrieved 20 July 2011
  2. ^ "Special Forces Obituaries: John Herivel", The Telegraph, 20 July 2011, retrieved 20 July 2011
  3. ^ Herivel 2008, p. 10
  4. ^ Herivel 2008