''The Code'' is a

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

-based

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

television programme A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming platf ...

for

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...

presented by

Marcus du Sautoy Marcus Peter Francis du Sautoy (; born 26 August 1965) is a British mathematician, Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, Fellow of New College, Oxford and author of popular mathematics and popula ...

, beginning on 27 July 2011 and ended on 10 August 2011. Each episode covers a different branch of mathematics. As well as being a documentary, ''The Code'' is also included a series of online challenges forming a treasure hunt, with clues to finding the treasure being included in the episodes, online games and other challenges.

Episodes

Treasure hunt

The treasure hunt is a series of online mathematical challenges. The BBC planned to offer the challenges to 1000 participants selected from among people who applied to participate via

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

or email. There are three stages to the treasure hunt: The Codebreakers, the Ultimate Challenge, and the Finale.

Stage 1: The Codebreakers

The first puzzles are "The Codebreakers". These consist of three wheels, one relating to each episode. Each Codebreaker has six different questions and challenges relating to it, the answers to which surround the wheel. Answers to these questions can be found by watching the episode for clues, completing a

flash game A browser game is a video game that is played on the internet using a web browser. They are sometimes referred to more specifically by their format, such as Flash games or HTML5 games. They are generally free-to-play and can be either single-play ...

, solving a puzzle on the programme's

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

or reaching a milestone in a mass community challenge, which involves trying to find examples of all the

prime number A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a Product (mathematics), product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime ...

s between 2 and 2011 in the real world. Once a clue is found, the challenger can enter it into the Codebreaker by moving the correct "hand" around the Codebreaker. Each time a hand is moved, the password given changes. Each possible outcome of the Codebreaker produces a different

password A password, sometimes called a passcode, is secret data, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm a user's identity. Traditionally, passwords were expected to be memorized, but the large number of password-protected services t ...

to the ultimate challenge. Entering the correct solutions into each of the three Codebreakers will result in the challenger getting the three correct passwords. Once these are entered, the Ultimate Challenge is accessible.

Stage 2: The Ultimate Challenge

The Ultimate Challenge was made accessible after all three episodes had been broadcast, and could only be accessed if the challenger entered all three passwords correctly. Once it was accessed, the first three eligible people to solve the Ultimate Challenge went through to the Finale.

Stage 3: The Finale

The Finale took place at

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and Bletchley Park estate, estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire), that became the principal centre of Allies of World War II, Allied World War II cryptography, code-breaking during the S ...

during the weekend of 10 September 2011. The prize, a specially commissioned mathematical sculpture of the

platonic solids In geometry, a Platonic solid is a convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the faces are congruent (identical in shape and size) regular polygons (all angles congruent and all edge ...

, was won by Pete Ryland.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Code (British TV programme), The 2011 British television series debuts 2011 British television series endings 2010s British documentary television series BBC television documentaries Documentary television series about mathematics British English-language television shows