Rejewski, Różycki, Zygalski lectures in computer science

To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the breaking of the Enigma cipher machine, the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science paid tribute to three eminent cryptologists – alumni of our university – by establishing an annual series of lectures named in honour of Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki, and Henryk Zygalski.

The series was inaugurated on 25 January 2008, at the Cryptology Day event. The first guest lecturers were Dr Marek Grajek, Andrew Odlyzko, and Joseph Pieprzyk. Subsequent talks were given by Avi Wigderson (2009), Emo Welzl (2010), Shafi Goldwasser (2011), Johan Håstad (2012), Noga Alon (2014), Gil Kalai (2015), Sir John Dermot Turing (2016), Christos H. Papadimitriou (2017), Clifford Cocks (2018), and Günter M. Ziegler (2020). These names testify to the highest world status enjoyed by this lecture series.

On 25 January 2018, precisely on the tenth anniversary of the series’ inauguration, at a ceremony held in the Lubranski Hall of AMU’s Collegium Minus building, Alumno Bene Merenti medals were awarded to the families of the cryptologists. This was a part of the second Cryptology Day held at AMU, including a special edition of the Rejewski, Różycki, Zygalski lectures in computer science. The speakers on this occasion were Marek Grajek and Clifford Cocks.