W. T. Tutte
From open-encyclopedia.com - the free encyclopedia.
William Thomas Tutte (May 14 1917 - May 2 2002) was a British codebreaker and mathematician. His work at Bletchley Park on one of the German FISH cyphers arguably changed the course of World War II, and led to the development of Colossus, one of the earliest electronic digital computers.
Tutte was born in Newmarket in Suffolk, the son of a gardener. At age 18 he studied chemistry at Cambridge University. As a student he worked on the problem of squaring the square. His tutor suggested he join the Government Code and Cipher School, which he did in 1941.
His later career concentrated on graph theory. Among other achievements, he disproved Tait's conjecture using the construction known as Tutte's fragment. A majority of his later work was done at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Canada.
References
- Brooks, R. L.; Smith, C. A. B.; Stone, A. H.; and Tutte, W. T. "The Dissection of Rectangles into Squares." Duke Math. J. 7, 312-340, 1940
