Marian Adam Rejewski was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who in late 1932 reconstructed the sight-unseen German military Enigma cipher machine.
Rejewski, c. 1932
Rejewski studied mathematics at Poznań University.
Rejewski laid flowers on Gauss's grave (Göttingen).
The bomba, or bomba kryptologiczna, was a special-purpose machine designed around October 1938 by Polish Cipher Bureau cryptologist Marian Rejewski to break German Enigma-machine ciphers.
Marian Rejewski
…introduced modifications to their Enigma machines and encryption procedures. Rejewski's contributions included the cryptologic card catalog and the cryptologic bomb. Five weeks before the outbreak of World War II in Europe, the Poles shared their achievements with French and British counterparts who had made no…
Diagram of Rejewski's cryptologic bomb. For clarity, only one set of three rotors is shown (1); in reality, there were six such sets. An electric motor (2) turns the rotors. 3: Switches.
Enigma's plugboard, with two cables connected (ten were used during World War II). This enhancement greatly increased the system's security.