A teaching module on the history of public-key cryptography and RSA

Abstract

This article describes some empirical research into using history in mathematics education. More precisely, it discusses a teaching module on the history of public-key cryptography and RSA, implemented in a Danish upper secondary mathematics class in the autumn of 2007. As part of the module the students were expected to write several essays illuminating different aspects of this history. The article discusses whether the students were able to reflect on meta-perspective issues of the evolution and development of mathematics and if so, then whether these reflections were anchored in the taught (and acquired) mathematics of public-key cryptography and RSA. The question of how teaching modules may be designed to take such matters into account is also discussed.

Acknowledgements and remarks

This article is based on a presentation given at the BSHM Research in Progress Meeting held on 1 March 2008 at The Queen's College, Oxford. I would like to thank the participants of this meeting for taking interest in my research as well as for making useful comments, some of which I have included in this article. Special thanks to Jan van Maanen for accompanying me to the Oxford meeting and to Tinne Hoff Kjeldsen for reading and commenting on this article before sending it to the BSHM Bulletin.

As already indicated the contents of this article are part of a larger research project, namely my PhD. In that respect the analysis and results of the teaching module as presented here are preliminary. Further investigations (and, I hope, also publications) will be made and presented in the future, in particular in the dissertation which is expected ready in the summer of 2009.

Notes

¹ http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/oct/18/digitalmedia.advertising (web site located on 3 March 2008.)