Preface//
In every field, there are hundreds of thousands of people.
Since the birth of open source network intelligence, there is no shortage of amazing talents. Therefore, this issue has set up a special column "Character Talk" to include the leaders of the modern and contemporary Internet and exhaust the "popular figures" in the intelligence industry.
This issue of "Character Talk" will introduce you to a codebreaker, William T. Tutte.
Famous mathematician and code-breaking expert
Professor Emeritus, University of Waterloo
Officer of the Order of Canada
As a mathematician, it is top notch.
As a cryptographer, it is great.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > gifted teenager</h1>
William T. Tutte was born in 1917 in Newmarket, England, a place known for horse breeding and horse racing since the end of the 19th century. Both Tut's parents work at Fitzroy House in Newmarket, his father William John is a real estate horticulturist and his mother, Annie, is a housekeeper.
Newmarket (Suffolk) Source: Wikipedia
When Tut was very young, the family lived in different towns because of changes in his father's job, until his father found work at the Rutland Arms Hotel in Newmarket at the age of 5, and the family returned to Newmarket again.
From then on, Tut began attending the nearby Church Primary School in Cleveley, England, where he owned a fine children's encyclopedia, and with the help of its contents, little Tut developed a keen interest in astronomy.
Chevli Country School Tute (bottom right) Source: Newmarket Magazine
At the age of 10, Tut took a scholarship exam for middle school, but his parents refused to let him attend early because he thought he was too far from home. It wasn't until a year later, when Tut was awarded a scholarship again, that his parents heeded the principal's advice and allowed him to attend Cambridge and County Boys' High School.
Cambridge and County Boys' High School (circa 1900) Image source: Twitter
At this school, he excelled academically, but it wasn't mathematics that inspired him first, and his favorite subject at the time was chemistry.
It was not until 1935 that the 18-year-old Tut entered Trinity College, Cambridge, to pursue an undergraduate degree, and he gradually discovered his interest in mathematics and joined the Trinity Mathematical Society. After graduating with first class honours in chemistry in 1938 and completing a master's degree in chemistry at the end of 1940, Tut officially switched to mathematics.
During this time, Tut met three of his most important like-minded friends of his life: Cedric Smith, Leonard Brooks, and Arthur Stone.
Cambridge, 1938 Source: Iain Strachan
They identified a problem with decomposing rectangles in HE Dudeney's book The Canterbury Problem (1931) and proposed a related idea. A paper published in the Duke Journal of Mathematics in 1940 proved the theorems of Max William Dean (one of the first mathematicians to write the theory of topological systems), as well as many other new theorems.
During this time, the Second World War had begun, and his mentor, Patrick Duff, had a new idea of his talents, which led to a new identity change in his career as a mathematician.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > coincidental codebreaker</h1>
In January 1941, at the invitation of his teacher, Tut entered Bletchley Park, now a legendary British code-cracking organization.
Bletchley Park Image source: CNBC
Before going to Blechley Park and joining the Research Department, he was interviewed in London and sent to London for training. Initially, he studied the Haguelin cipher that the Italian Navy was using, because it was using a rotary cipher machine that was commercially available, so the encryption mechanism was known, and decrypting the message only required figuring out how the machine was set up.
In October of the same year, Tut was transferred to work on a project called "Fish". Intelligence information shows that the Germans called the radio-transmitted printer transmission system "Sägefisch" (sawfish), so the British used the code "Fish" as the codename for the German telex code system. The nickname "Tunny" (tuna) was used for the first "Fish" link, followed by the Lorenz SZ machine and its encrypted traffic.
Lorenz SZ machine Image source: Wikipedia
In August 1941, a German operator sent a telex message encrypted with "Fish" from Athens to Berlin, containing about 4,000 letters. For some reason, the message was not received correctly and was resended with the same settings, with exactly the same content, but slightly different word spacing and punctuation.
Knowing the structure of the cipher machine is necessary to crack the code, Tut added the "Fish" project and inferred the internal structure of the machine by examining the patterns in the characters. Then, in a joint study with his colleagues, Tut finally determined the specific number of wheels in addition to the machine and discovered how they were connected, thus completely recreating the machine.
Remove the lid of the Lorenz SZ42 Image source: Wikipedia
But this was only the first step, and then Tut began working on creating an algorithm to decode the FISH message and successfully wrote it. The British Post Office later designed and built a computer called Colossus to run the algorithm that decoded Tut, and the success of this work made the batch decryption of Lorenz's encrypted messages effective, making a huge and even decisive contribution to the success of World War II.
Tony Sale first described the work in a 1997 article in The New Scientist and called it "the greatest intellectual expertise of the entire war."
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > professor of mathematics who returns to his original intention</h1>
In the second half of 1945, Tut returned to Cambridge to pursue a doctorate in mathematics, and after completing his degree, he was invited by HSM Coxeter to go to Canada to join the University college of Toronto. During his fourteen years in Toronto, he distinguished himself in the field of combinatorial technology and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Outside of work, Tut enjoys hiking and became a member of the Canadian Youth Hostel Association shortly after arriving in Canada. It was through the youth hostel movement that he met the love of his life: Dorothea Mitchell from Oakville, who married in October 1949.
In 1968, Tut was near his home Source: University of Waterloo
In 1962, Tutte joined the University college of Waterloo, which had only been established for five years, and his appearance attracted combinatorialists from all over the world, not only recognized celebrities in the field, but also those who later became celebrities, and his joining made a significant contribution to the reputation of the University of Waterloo.
Tute of the University of Waterloo Source: University of Waterloo
In 1975, Tut was awarded the Tory Medal by the Royal Society of Canada and the Kiram Prize in 1982.
Toot officially retired from the University of Waterloo in 1985, but went on to serve as professor emeritus, a key member of the college, and before retiring he was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Combination Theory.
In 1987, Tut was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, and in October 2001 he was elected Torre of Canada at a ceremony in Rido Hall in Ottawa. Unfortunately, he died of illness a year later.
More than a decade after Tut's death, a monument was erected in his former hometown of Newmarket to remember his extraordinary contributions and outstanding achievements.
Image source: the conversation
With a pious heart, it becomes an immortal thing.
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Cover source: Wikipedia