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(Photo taken at the Ottawa International Airport in November 1999)
A chemistry graduate of Cambridge with an acute penchant for mathematics, William Tutte was instrumental in breaking Fish (also known as Tunny) for which he had done ground-breaking research and analysis while at Bletchley Park. This analysis centered on two messages that were in depth - i.e. using the same key to combine with the plaintext to produce the ciphertext. Remarked as "the greatest intellectual feat of the whole war," the work on FISH led to the development of what is generally accepted as the very first computer in Colossus at Bletchley Park.
After Bletchley, Dr. Tutte immigrated to Canada and joined the faculty at the University of Toronto in 1948. In 1962, Dr. Tutte joined the University of Waterloo and specialized in combinatorics and graph theory. After a stellar career at the University of Waterloo, he received the Order of Canada in 2001 and the recognition can be read at this Order of Canada website. He passed away in 2002.
Other related websites:
I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Dr. William (Bill) Tutte in 1999 when he came to visit Ottawa to give a presentation on "Fish and I" for which a PDF copy is still available online from the University of Waterloo.
