William Thomas "Bill" Tutte
Tutte's work on the Lorenz system made a major contribution to Bletchley Park's high-level signals intelligence effort. His later mathematical career also left enduring results in graph theory and combinatorics.
William Thomas Tutte was a British-born mathematician who became a leading cryptanalyst at Bletchley Park during the Second World War. He joined the research section in 1941.
Lorenz analysis
Without seeing the machine, Tutte reconstructed the internal structure of the German Lorenz SZ40/42 teleprinter cipher, called TUNNY at Bletchley Park. GCHQ describes this as one of the war's significant intellectual breakthroughs.
In memoriam
After the war, Tutte pursued a distinguished academic career in Canada, particularly in graph theory and combinatorics. He died in 2002; Canadian cryptologic research later took his name in the Tutte Institute for Mathematics and Computing.
Timeline
- 1917-05-14Is born in Newmarket, England.
- 1941-05Arrives at Bletchley Park and joins the research section.
- 1942Develops methods that establish the structure of the Lorenz SZ40/42 cipher.
- 1987Is elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
- 2002-05-02Dies in Kitchener, Ontario.
William Thomas "Bill" Tutte
- Type
- Person
- Era
- 1940s-2002
- Born
- 1917-05-14
- Died
- 2002-05-02
- Known for
- Lorenz SZ40/42 analysis; Bletchley Park research section; Graph theory; Tutte Institute namesake
- Tags
- cryptanalysis, lorenz, bletchley-park, graph-theory, mathematics, gchq
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