Editing W. T. Tutte

{{Short description|British-Canadian codebreaker and mathematician (1917–2002)}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = W. T. Tutte
| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=CAN|OC|FRS|FRSC|size=100%}}
| image = W._T._Tutte.jpg
| image_size = 
| alt = 
| caption = 
| birth_name = William Thomas Tutte
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1917|05|14}}
| birth_place = [[Newmarket, Suffolk]], England
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|2002|05|02|1917|05|14}}
| death_place = [[Kitchener, Ontario|Kitchener]], Ontario, Canada
| residence = 
| citizenship = 
| nationality = 
| fields = [[Mathematics]]
| workplaces = [[University of Toronto]]<br />[[University of Waterloo]]
| alma_mater = [[Trinity College, Cambridge]] ([[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]])
| thesis_title = An Algebraic Theory of Graphs<ref name="MGP">{{MathGenealogy|id=15096}}</ref>
| thesis_year = 1948
| doctoral_advisor = [[Shaun Wylie]]<ref name="MGP"/>
| academic_advisors = 
| doctoral_students = {{plainlist|1=
*[[W. G. Brown]]
*[[Neil Robertson (mathematician)|Neil Robertson]]<ref name="MGP"/>
}}
| notable_students = 
| known_for = {{Plainlist|
*[[BEST theorem]]
*[[Hanani–Tutte theorem]]
*[[Peripheral cycle]]
*[[Tutte 12-cage]]
*[[Tutte embedding]]
*[[Tutte graph]]
*[[Tutte homotopy theorem]]
*[[Tutte matrix]]
*[[Tutte polynomial]]
*[[Tutte theorem]]
*[[Tutte–Berge formula]]
*[[Tutte–Coxeter graph]]
*[[Tutte–Grothendieck invariant]]
*[[Cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher#Tutte's "1+2 break in"|Tutte's "1+2 break in"]]
*Tutte's 1-factor theorem
*[[Tutte's fragment]]
*Tutte's linking theorem
*Tutte's planarity criterion
*[[W. T. Tutte#Tutte's statistical method|Tutte's statistical method]]
*Tutte's triangle lemma
*Tutte's unimodular representation theorem
*Tutte's wheel theorem
}}
| author_abbrev_bot = 
| author_abbrev_zoo = 
| influences = 
| influenced = 
| awards = {{Plainlist|
* [[Jeffery–Williams Prize]] (1971)
* [[Henry Marshall Tory Medal]] (1975)
* [[Isaak-Walton-Killam Award]] (1982)
* [[CRM-Fields-PIMS prize]] (2001)
}}
| spouse = {{marriage|Dorothea Mitchell|1949|1994|end=died}}
| signature = <!--(filename only)-->
| signature_alt = 
| footnotes = 
}}
'''William Thomas Tutte''' {{post-nominals|country=CAN|OC|FRS|FRSC}} ({{IPAc-en|t|ʌ|t}}; 14 May 1917 – 2 May 2002) was an English and Canadian [[Cryptanalysis|code breaker]] and mathematician. During the [[Second World War]], he made a fundamental advance in [[cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher]], a major [[Nazi Germany|Nazi German]] cipher system which was used for top-secret communications within the [[Wehrmacht]] High Command. The high-level, strategic nature of the intelligence obtained from Tutte's crucial breakthrough, in the bulk decrypting of Lorenz-enciphered messages specifically, contributed greatly, and perhaps even decisively, to the defeat of Nazi Germany.<ref name="Hinsley 1993 8">{{Harvnb|Hinsley|Stripp|1993|p=8}}</ref><ref name="Brzezinski 2005 18">{{harvnb|Brzezinski|2005|p=18}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Copeland |first=B. Jack |date=9 March 2025 |title=W. T. Tutte—The Graph Theorist Whose Code-Busting Algorithms Powered the D-Day Invasion |url=https://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00283-024-10386-7 |journal=The Mathematical Intelligencer |language=en |doi=10.1007/s00283-024-10386-7 |issn=0343-6993|doi-access=free }}</ref> He also had a number of significant mathematical accomplishments, including foundation work in the fields of [[graph theory]] and [[matroid theory]].<ref name="frs">{{Harvnb|Younger|2012}}</ref><ref name="MacTutorBiog"/>

Tutte's research in the field of graph theory proved to be of remarkable importance. At a time when graph theory was still a primitive subject, Tutte commenced the study of [[matroid]]s and developed them into a theory by expanding from the work that [[Hassler Whitney]] had first developed around the mid-1930s.<ref>{{cite web|last=Johnson|first=Will|title=Matroids |url=http://www.math.washington.edu/~morrow/336_09/papers/Will.pdf |access-date=16 October 2014}}</ref> Even though Tutte's contributions to graph theory have been influential to modern graph theory and many of his theorems have been used to keep making advances in the field, most of his terminology was not in agreement with their conventional usage and thus his terminology is not used by graph theorists today.<ref name="Hobbs 2004 322">{{cite journal |last=Hobbs |first=Arthur M. |author-link=Arthur Hobbs (mathematician) |author2=James G. Oxley |author-link2=James Oxley |date=March 2004 |title=William T. Tutte (1917–2002) |journal=[[Notices of the American Mathematical Society]] |volume=51 |issue=3 |page=322 |url=http://www.ams.org/notices/200403/mem-tutte.pdf}}</ref> "Tutte advanced graph theory from a subject with one text ([[Dénes Kőnig|D. Kőnig]]'s) toward its present extremely active state."<ref name="Hobbs 2004 322"/>

==Early life and education==
Tutte was born in [[Newmarket, Suffolk|Newmarket]] in Suffolk. He was the younger son of William John Tutte (1873–1944), an estate gardener, and Annie (''née'' Newell; 1881–1956), a housekeeper. Both parents worked at Fitzroy House stables where Tutte was born.<ref name="MacTutorBiog"/> The family spent some time in Buckinghamshire, County Durham and Yorkshire before returning to Newmarket, where Tutte attended [[Cheveley]] Church of England primary school<ref>Cheveley CofE Primary School, Park Road, Cheveley, Cambridgeshire, CB8 9DF http://www.cheveley.cambs.sch.uk/</ref> in the nearby village of Cheveley.<ref name="frs"/> In 1927, when he was ten, Tutte won a [[scholarship]] to the [[Cambridgeshire High School for Boys|Cambridge and County High School for Boys]]. He took up his place there in 1928.

In 1935 he won a scholarship to study natural sciences at [[Trinity College, Cambridge]], where he specialized in [[chemistry]] and graduated with first-class honours in 1938.<ref name="frs"/> He continued with [[physical chemistry]] as a graduate student, but transferred to mathematics at the end of 1940.<ref name="frs"/> As a student, he (along with three of his friends) became one of the first to solve the problem of [[squaring the square]], and the first to solve the problem without a squared subrectangle. Together the four created the [[pseudonym]] [[Blanche Descartes]], under which Tutte published occasionally for years.<ref>{{citation | last1 = Smith | first1 = Cedric A. B. | first2 = Steve | last2 = Abbott | title = The Story of Blanche Descartes | journal = The Mathematical Gazette | issn = 0025-5572 |date=March 2003 | volume = 87 | issue = 508 | pages = 23–33 | jstor = 3620560| doi = 10.1017/S0025557200172067 | s2cid = 192758206 }}</ref>

==Second World War==
{{See also|Cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher}}
[[File:SZ42-6-wheels-lightened.jpg|right|upright=1.8|thumbnail|The Lorenz SZ machines had 12 wheels each with a different number of cams (or "pins").
{| class="wikitable" | border=1  style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|-
!Wheel number
|1||2||3||4||5||6||7||8||9||10||11||12
|-
! BP wheel name<ref name = "GRoT11B6">{{Harvnb|Good|Michie|Timms|1945|p=6}} in ''1. Introduction: German Tunny''</ref>
| style="text-align:center;"| <math>\psi_1</math>
| style="text-align:center;"| <math>\psi_2</math>
| style="text-align:center;"| <math>\psi_3</math>
| style="text-align:center;"| <math>\psi_4</math>
| style="text-align:center;"| <math>\psi_5</math>
| style="text-align:center;"| <math>\mu</math>37
| style="text-align:center;"| <math>\mu</math>61
| style="text-align:center;"| <math>\chi_1</math>
| style="text-align:center;"| <math>\chi_2</math>
| style="text-align:center;"| <math>\chi_3</math>
| style="text-align:center;"| <math>\chi_4</math>
| style="text-align:center;"| <math>\chi_5</math>
|-
! Number of cams (pins)
|43||47||51||53||59||37||61||41||31||29||26||23
|}
]]

Soon after the outbreak of the [[Second World War]], Tutte's tutor, Patrick Duff, suggested him for war work at the [[Government Code and Cypher School]] at [[Bletchley Park]] (BP). He was interviewed and sent on a training course in London before going to Bletchley Park, where he joined the Research Section. At first, he worked on the [[Boris Hagelin|Hagelin]] cipher that was being used by the Italian Navy. This was a [[Rotor machine|rotor cipher]] machine that was available commercially, so the mechanics of enciphering was known, and decrypting messages only required working out how the machine was set up.<ref>{{Harvnb|Tutte|2006|pp=352–353}}</ref>

In the summer of 1941, Tutte was transferred to work on a project called Fish. Intelligence information had revealed that the Germans called the wireless teleprinter transmission systems "Sägefisch" ('sawfish'). This led the British to use the code [[Fish (cryptography)|Fish]] for the German teleprinter cipher system.  The nickname Tunny (tunafish) was used for the first non-Morse link, and it was subsequently used for the [[Lorenz cipher|Lorenz SZ machines]] and the traffic that they enciphered.<ref>{{cite book |title=Codebreakers: the inside story of Bletchley Park |editor1=F.H. Hinsley |editor2=Alan Stripp |year=2001 |last=Hinsley |first=F.H. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j1MC2d2LPAcC&pg=PA141 |chapter=An Introduction to Fish |pages=141–148 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-280132-5 |orig-year=1993}}</ref>

Telegraphy used the [[bit|5-bit]] [[ITA2|International Telegraphy Alphabet No. 2]] (ITA2). Nothing was known about the mechanism of enciphering other than that messages were preceded by a 12-letter [[Cryptanalysis#Indicator|indicator]], which implied a 12-wheel rotor cipher machine. The first step, therefore, had to be to diagnose the machine by establishing the logical structure and hence the functioning of the machine. Tutte played a pivotal role in achieving this, and it was not until shortly before the Allied victory in Europe in 1945, that Bletchley Park acquired a Tunny Lorenz cipher machine.<ref name=Sale>{{Citation |last=Sale |first= Tony |author-link=Anthony Sale |title=The Lorenz Cipher and how Bletchley Park broke it |url=http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/lorenz/fish.htm |access-date=21 October 2010}}</ref> Tutte's breakthroughs led eventually to bulk decrypting of Tunny-enciphered messages between the German High Command [[Oberkommando der Wehrmacht|(OKW)]] in Berlin and their army commands throughout occupied Europe and contributed—perhaps decisively—to the defeat of Germany.<ref name="Hinsley 1993 8"/><ref name="Brzezinski 2005 18"/>

===Diagnosing the cipher machine===
On 31 August 1941, [[Lorenz cipher#Code breaking|two versions of the same message]] were sent using identical keys, which constituted a "[[Cryptanalysis#Depth|depth]]". This allowed [[John Tiltman]], Bletchley Park's veteran and remarkably gifted cryptanalyst, to deduce that it was a [[Gilbert Vernam|Vernam cipher]] which uses the [[Exclusive or|Exclusive Or (XOR)]] function (symbolised by "⊕"), and to extract the two messages and hence obtain the obscuring key. After a fruitless period during which Research Section cryptanalysts tried to work out how the Tunny machine worked, this and some other keys were handed to Tutte, who was asked to "see what you can make of these".<ref>{{Harvnb|Tutte|2006|p=354}}</ref>
[[File:Lorenz-SZ42-2.jpg|right|280px|thumbnail|The Lorenz SZ42 machine with its covers removed. [[Bletchley Park]] museum]]
At his training course, Tutte had been taught the [[Kasiski examination]] technique of writing out a key on squared paper, starting a new row after a defined number of characters that was suspected of being the frequency of repetition of the key.<ref>{{Harvnb|Bauer|2006|p=375}}</ref> If this number was correct, the columns of the matrix would show more repetitions of sequences of characters than chance alone. Tutte knew that the Tunny indicators used 25 letters (excluding J) for 11 of the positions, but only 23 letters for the other. He therefore tried Kasiski's technique on the first impulse of the key characters, using a repetition of 25 × 23 = 575. He did not observe a large number of column repetitions with this period, but he did observe the phenomenon on a diagonal. He therefore tried again with 574, which showed up repeats in the columns. Recognising that the [[prime factor]]s of this number are 2, 7 and 41, he tried again with a period of 41 and "got a rectangle of dots and crosses that was replete with repetitions".<ref>{{Harvnb|Tutte|2006|pp=356–357}}</ref>

It was clear, however, that the first impulse of the key was more complicated than that produced by a single wheel of 41 key impulses. Tutte called this component of the key <math>\chi_1</math> (''chi''<sub>1</sub>). He figured that there was another component, which was XOR-ed with this, that did not always change with each new character, and that this was the product of a wheel that he called <math>\psi_1</math> (''psi''<sub>1</sub>). The same applied for each of the five impulses {{nowrap|(<math>\chi_1 \chi_2 \chi_3 \chi_4 \chi_5</math> and <math>\psi_1 \psi_2 \psi_3 \psi_4 \psi_5</math>).}} So for a single character, the whole key '''K''' consisted of two components:
<math display="block">K = \chi \oplus \psi</math>

At Bletchley Park, mark impulses were signified by '''x''' and space impulses by '''•'''.{{refn|group=nb|In more recent terminology, each impulse would be termed a "[[bit]]" with a mark being binary 1 and a space being binary 0. Punched paper tape had a hole for a mark and no hole for a space.}} For example, the letter "H" would be coded as '''••x•x'''.<ref>{{Harvnb|Copeland|2006|pp=348, 349}}</ref> Tutte's derivation of the ''chi'' and ''psi'' components was made possible by the fact that dots were more likely than not to be followed by dots, and crosses more likely than not to be followed by crosses. This was a product of a weakness in the German key setting, which they later eliminated. Once Tutte had made this breakthrough, the rest of the Research Section joined in to study the other impulses, and it was established that the five ''chi'' wheels all advanced with each new character and that the five ''psi'' wheels all moved together under the control of two ''mu'' or "motor" wheels. Over the following two months, Tutte and other members of the Research Section worked out the complete logical structure of the machine, with its set of wheels bearing cams that could either be in a position (raised) that added '''x''' to the stream of key characters, or in the alternative position that added in '''•'''.<ref>{{Harvnb|Tutte|2006|p=357}}</ref>

Diagnosing the functioning of the Tunny machine in this way was a truly remarkable cryptanalytical achievement which, in the citation for Tutte's induction as an Officer of the [[Order of Canada]], was described as "one of the greatest intellectual feats of World War II".<ref name="MacTutorBiog">{{Harvnb|O'Connor|Robertson|2003}} <!-- {{cite web | url = http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/lorenz/fish.htm | title = The Lorenz Cipher and how Bletchley Park broke it | publisher = Codesandciphers.org.uk | date=30 August 1941 | accessdate=26 October 2011 }}--></ref>

===Tutte's statistical method===
{{See also|Cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher#The "1+2 break in"|label 1=Tutte's "1+2 break in"}}
To decrypt a Tunny message required knowledge not only of the logical functioning of the machine, but also the start positions of each rotor for the particular message. The search was on for a process that would manipulate the ciphertext or key to produce a frequency distribution of characters that departed from the uniformity that the enciphering process aimed to achieve. While on secondment to the Research Section in July 1942, [[Alan Turing]] worked out that the XOR combination of the values of successive characters in a stream of ciphertext and key emphasised any departures from a uniform distribution. The resultant stream (symbolised by the Greek letter "delta" '''Δ''') was called the [[Cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher#Differencing|difference]] because XOR is the same as modulo 2 subtraction.

The reason that this provided a way into Tunny was that although the frequency distribution of characters in the ciphertext could not be distinguished from a random stream, the same was not true for a version of the ciphertext from which the ''chi'' element of the key had been removed. This was the case because where the plaintext contained a repeated character and the ''psi'' wheels did not move on, the differenced ''psi'' character (<math>\Delta\psi</math>) would be the null character ('<span style="font-size:140%;">'''/'''</span> ' at Bletchley Park). When XOR-ed with any character, this character has no effect. Repeated characters in the plaintext were more frequent both because of the characteristics of German (EE, TT, LL and SS are relatively common),<ref>{{Citation |last=Singh |first=Simon |author-link=Simon Singh |title=The Black Chamber |url=http://www.simonsingh.net/The_Black_Chamber/hintsandtips.html |access-date=28 April 2012}}</ref> and because telegraphists frequently repeated the figure-shift and letter-shift characters.<ref>[[Max Newman|Newman]] c. 1944 p. 387</ref>

To quote the General Report on Tunny:<blockquote>Turingery introduced the principle that the key differenced at one, now called '''ΔΚ''', could yield information unobtainable from ordinary key. This '''Δ''' principle was to be the fundamental basis of nearly all statistical methods of wheel-breaking and setting.<ref name="GRoT11B6"/></blockquote>

Tutte exploited this amplification of non-uniformity in the differenced values {{refn|group=nb|For this reason Tutte's 1 + 2 method is sometimes called the "double delta" method.}} and by November 1942 had produced a way of discovering wheel starting points of the Tunny machine which became known as the "Statistical Method".<ref>{{Harvnb|Tutte|1998|pp=7–8}}</ref> The essence of this method was to find the initial settings of the ''chi'' component of the key by exhaustively trying all positions of its combination with the ciphertext, and looking for evidence of the non-uniformity that reflected the characteristics of the original plaintext.<ref>{{Harvnb|Good|Michie|Timms|1945|pp=321–322}} in ''44. Hand Statistical Methods: Setting – Statistical Methods''</ref> Because any repeated characters in the plaintext would always generate '''•''', and similarly <math>\Delta\psi_1 \oplus \Delta\psi_2</math> would generate '''•''' whenever the ''psi'' wheels did not move on, and about half of the time when they did – some 70% overall.

As well as applying differencing to the full 5-bit characters of the ITA2 code, Tutte applied it to the individual impulses (bits).{{refn|group=nb|The five impulses or bits of the coded characters are sometimes referred to as five levels.}} The current ''chi'' wheel cam settings needed to have been established to allow the relevant sequence of characters of the ''chi'' wheels to be generated. It was totally impracticable to generate the 22 million characters from all five of the ''chi'' wheels, so it was initially limited to 41 × 31 = 1271 from the first two. After explaining his findings to [[Max Newman]], Newman was given the job of developing an automated approach to comparing ciphertext and key to look for departures from randomness. The first machine was dubbed [[Heath Robinson (codebreaking machine)|Heath Robinson]], but the much faster [[Colossus computer]], developed by [[Tommy Flowers]] and using algorithms written by Tutte and his colleagues, soon took over for breaking codes.<ref>{{Harvnb|Copeland|2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://uwaterloo.ca/combinatorics-and-optimization/about/professor-william-t-tutte/biography-professor-tutte#bletchley | title=Biography of Professor Tutte | date=August 2002 | first=Dan | last=Younger | work=CMS Notes | via=University of Waterloo | access-date=24 June 2018 }}</ref><ref>{{Citation | last = Roberts | first = Jerry | author-link = Jerry Roberts | title = Lorenz: Breaking Hitler's top secret code at Bletchley Park | place = Stroud, Gloucestershire | publisher = The History Press | year = 2017 | isbn = 978-0-7509-7885-9}}</ref>

==Doctorate and career==
In late 1945, Tutte resumed his studies at [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]], now as a graduate student in mathematics. He published some work begun earlier, one a now famous paper that characterises which graphs have a perfect matching, and another that constructs a non-Hamiltonian graph.

Tutte completed a doctorate in mathematics from Cambridge in 1948 under the supervision of [[Shaun Wylie]], who had also worked at Bletchley Park on Tunny. His thesis ''An Algebraic Theory of Graphs'' was considered ground breaking and was about the subject later known as matroid theory.<ref name="uwaterloo.ca">{{Cite web |url=https://uwaterloo.ca/combinatorics-and-optimization/about/professor-william-t-tutte/biography-professor-tutte |title=Biography of Professor Tutte &#124; Combinatorics and Optimization &#124; University of Waterloo |access-date=11 May 2017 |archive-date=19 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190819115149/https://uwaterloo.ca/combinatorics-and-optimization/about/professor-william-t-tutte/biography-professor-tutte |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The same year, invited by [[Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter]], he accepted a position at the [[University of Toronto]]. In 1962, he moved to the [[University of Waterloo]] in [[Waterloo, Ontario|Waterloo]], Ontario, where he stayed for the rest of his academic career. He officially retired in 1985, but remained active as an emeritus professor. Tutte was instrumental in helping to found the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization at the University of Waterloo.

His mathematical career concentrated on [[combinatorics]], especially [[graph theory]], which he is credited as having helped create in its modern form, and [[matroid theory]], to which he made profound contributions; one colleague <!-- Dr. Younger --> described him as "the leading mathematician in combinatorics for three decades". He was editor in chief of the ''[[Journal of Combinatorial Theory]]'' until retiring from Waterloo in 1985.<ref name="uwaterloo.ca"/> He also served on the editorial boards of several other mathematical research journals.

==Research contributions==
Tutte's work in [[graph theory]] includes the structure of [[cycle space]]s and [[cut space]]s, the size of [[maximum matching]]s and existence of [[k-factor (graph theory)|''k''-factor]]s in graphs, and [[Hamiltonian path|Hamiltonian]] and non-Hamiltonian graphs.<ref name="uwaterloo.ca"/> He disproved [[Tait's conjecture]], on the Hamiltonicity of [[polyhedral graph]]s, by using the construction known as [[Tutte's fragment]]. The eventual proof of the [[four colour theorem]] made use of his earlier work. The graph polynomial he called the "dichromate" has become famous and influential under the name of the [[Tutte polynomial]] and serves as the prototype of combinatorial invariants that are universal for all invariants that satisfy a specified reduction law.

The first major advances in [[matroid theory]] were made by Tutte in his 1948 Cambridge PhD thesis which formed the basis of an important sequence of papers published over the next two decades. Tutte's work in graph theory and matroid theory has been profoundly influential on the development of both the content and direction of these two fields.<ref name="Hobbs 2004 322"/> In matroid theory, he discovered the highly sophisticated [[Tutte homotopy theorem|homotopy theorem]] and founded the studies of [[matroid|chain group]]s and [[regular matroid]]s, about which he proved deep results.

In addition, Tutte developed an algorithm for determining whether a given [[binary matroid]] is a [[graphic matroid]]. The algorithm makes use of the fact that a planar graph is simply a graph whose circuit-matroid, the dual of its [[Dual matroid|bond-matroid]], is graphic.<ref>W.T Tutte. An algorithm for determining whether a given binary matroid is graphic, ''Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society'', '''11'''(1960)905–917</ref>

Tutte wrote a paper entitled ''How to Draw a Graph'' in which he proved that any face in a 3-connected graph is enclosed by a [[peripheral cycle]]. Using this fact, Tutte developed an alternative proof to show that every Kuratowski graph is non-planar by showing that ''K''<sub>5</sub> and ''K''<sub>3,3</sub> each have three distinct peripheral cycles with a common edge. In addition to using peripheral cycles to prove that the Kuratowski graphs are non-planar, Tutte proved that every simple 3-connected graph can be drawn with all its faces convex, and devised an algorithm which constructs the plane drawing by solving a linear system. The resulting drawing is known as the [[Tutte embedding]].
Tutte's algorithm makes use of the [[barycentric coordinates (mathematics)|barycentric]] mappings of the peripheral circuits of a simple 3-connected graph.<ref>W.T. Tutte. How to draw a graph. Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, 13(3):743–768, 1963.</ref>

The findings published in this paper have proved to be of much significance because the algorithms that Tutte developed have become popular planar graph drawing methods.
One of the reasons for which Tutte's embedding is popular is that the necessary computations that are carried out by his algorithms are simple and guarantee a one-to-one correspondence of a graph and its embedding onto the [[Euclidean plane]], which is of importance when parameterising a three-dimensional mesh to the plane in geometric modelling. "Tutte's theorem is the basis for solutions to other computer graphics problems, such as [[Morphing#Present use of morphing|morphing]]."<ref>Steven J. Gortle; Craig Gotsman; Dylan Thurston. "Discrete One-Forms on Meshes and Applications to 3D Mesh Parameterization", ''Computer Aided Geometric Design'', 23(2006)83–112</ref>

Tutte was mainly responsible for developing the theory of [[graph enumeration|enumeration]] of planar graphs, which has close links with chromatic and dichromatic polynomials. This work involved some highly innovative techniques of his own invention, requiring considerable manipulative dexterity in handling [[power series]] (whose coefficients count appropriate kinds of graphs) and the functions arising as their sums, as well as geometrical dexterity in extracting these power series from the graph-theoretic situation.<ref>[[Crispin Nash-Williams|C. St. J. A. Nash-Williams]], A Note on Some of Professor Tutte's Mathematical Work, Graph Theory and Related Topics (eds. J.A Bondy and U. S. R Murty), Academic Press, New York, 1979, p. xxvii.</ref>

Tutte summarised his work in the ''Selected Papers of W.T. Tutte'', 1979, and in ''Graph Theory as I have known it'', 1998.<ref name="uwaterloo.ca"/>

==Positions, honours and awards==
Tutte's work in World War II and subsequently in combinatorics brought him various positions, honours and awards:
* 1958, Fellow of the [[Royal Society of Canada]] (FRSC);
* 1971, [[Jeffery–Williams Prize]] by the [[Canadian Mathematical Society]];
* 1975, [[Henry Marshall Tory Medal]] by the Royal Society of Canada;
* 1977, A conference on Graph Theory and Related Topics was held at the [[University of Waterloo]] in his honour on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday;
* 1982, [[Isaak-Walton-Killam Award]] by the [[Canada Council]];
* 1987, [[Fellow of the Royal Society]] (FRS);
* 1990–1996, First President of the [[Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications]];<ref>{{cite web |title=The Institute of Combinatorics & Its Applications |url=http://www.theica.org/ |publisher=ICA |access-date=28 September 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131002064646/http://www.theica.org/ |archive-date=2 October 2013}}</ref>
* 1998, Appointed honorary director of the [[Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research]] at the University of Waterloo;<ref>{{cite web |title=Tutte honoured by cryptographic centre |url=http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infonews/release/1998/107%20Tutte%20honored%20by%20new%20Centre%20for%20Applied%20Cryptographic%20Research,%20June%2017,%201998.html
|publisher=University of Waterloo |access-date=28 September 2013}}</ref>
* 2001, Officer of the [[Order of Canada]] (OC);<ref name="Order of Canada">{{cite web | title=Mr. William Thomas Tutte - Officer of the Order of Canada | website=The Governor General of Canada | date=2000-11-15 | url=https://www.gg.ca/en/honours/recipients/146-15033 | access-date=2025-04-06}}</ref>
* 2001, [[CRM-Fields-PIMS prize]].
* 2016, Waterloo Region Hall of Fame<ref>{{cite news | url=https://uwaterloo.ca/combinatorics-and-optimization/news/bill-tutte-inducted-waterloo-region-hall-fame | title=Bill Tutte inducted into the Waterloo Region Hall of Fame &#124; Combinatorics and Optimization | newspaper=Combinatorics and Optimization | date=25 April 2016 }}</ref>
* 2017, Waterloo "William Tutte Way" road naming<ref>{{cite web | url=https://uwaterloo.ca/stories/mathematics-professor-and-wartime-code-breaker-honoured | title=Mathematics professor and wartime code-breaker honoured | date=12 May 2017 }}</ref>
Tutte served as Librarian for the [[Royal Astronomical Society of Canada]] in 1959–1960, and asteroid [[14989 Tutte]] (1997 UB7) was named after him.<ref>{{cite web |title=Asteroid (14989) Tutte |url=http://www.rasc.ca/content/asteroid-14989 |publisher=Royal Astronomical Society of Canada |date=14 June 2011 |access-date=25 September 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150104181311/http://www.rasc.ca/content/asteroid-14989 |archive-date=4 January 2015 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Because of Tutte's work at Bletchley Park, Canada's [[Communications Security Establishment]] named an internal organisation aimed at promoting research into cryptology, the [[Tutte Institute for Mathematics and Computing]] (TIMC), in his honour in 2011.<ref>{{cite news|last=Freeze|first=Colin|title=Top secret institute comes out of the shadows to recruit top talent
|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/top-secret-institute-comes-out-of-the-shadows-to-recruit-top-talent/article2154310/
|access-date=25 September 2014|newspaper=The Globe and Mail|date=7 September 2011|location=Toronto}}</ref>

In September 2014, Tutte was celebrated in his hometown of Newmarket, England, with the unveiling of a sculpture, after a local newspaper started a campaign to honour his memory.<ref>{{cite web|access-date=13 December 2014 |url=http://billtuttememorial.org.uk/the-memorial/
|title=The Bill Tutte Memorial |publisher=Bill Tutte Memorial Fund }}</ref>

Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes celebrated Tutte's work with an exhibition ''Bill Tutte: Mathematician + Codebreaker'' from May 2017 to 2019, preceded on 14 May 2017 by lectures about his life and work during the Bill Tutte Centenary Symposium.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://uwaterloo.ca/combinatorics-and-optimization/news/bill-tutte-centenary-symposium-bletchley-park-0 | title=The Bill Tutte Centenary Symposium (Bletchley Park) | date=11 April 2017 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/news/codebreaker-bill-tutte-to-be-celebrated-in-centenary-exhibition |title=Bletchley Park &#124; News — New exhibition to tell story of Bill Tutte |access-date=11 May 2017 |archive-date=6 June 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170606221506/https://bletchleypark.org.uk/news/codebreaker-bill-tutte-to-be-celebrated-in-centenary-exhibition |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Personal life and death==
In addition to the career benefits of working at the new [[University of Waterloo]], the more rural setting of [[Waterloo County]] appealed to Bill and his wife Dorothea.  They bought a house in the nearby village of [[West Montrose, Ontario]] where they enjoyed hiking, spending time in their garden on the Grand River and allowing others to enjoy the beautiful scenery of their property.

They also had an extensive knowledge of all the birds in their garden. Dorothea, an avid potter, was also a keen hiker and Bill organised hiking trips. Even near the end of his life Bill still was an avid walker.<ref name="Hobbs 2004 322"/><ref>{{cite web | title=Bill Tutte | url=http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Obits2/Tutte_Telegraph.html | publisher=Telegraph Group Limited | access-date=21 May 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130927151741/http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Obits2/Tutte_Telegraph.html | archive-date=27 September 2013 | url-status=dead}}</ref> After his wife died in 1994, he moved back to Newmarket (Suffolk), but then returned to Waterloo in 2000, where he died two years later.<ref>{{Citation | last = van der Vat | first = Dan | author-link = Dan van der Vat | title = Obituary: William Tutte | place =London | work = The Guardian | date = 10 May 2002 | url = https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/may/10/guardianobituaries.obituaries | access-date = 28 April 2013 }}</ref> He is buried in West Montrose United Cemetery.<ref name="uwaterloo.ca"/>

==Select publications==

===Books===
*{{citation|ref=none |last=Tutte |first=W. T.
|title=Connectivity in graphs |series=Mathematical expositions |volume=15
|location=Toronto, Ontario |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=1966 |zbl=0146.45603}}
*{{citation|ref=none |last=Tutte |first=W. T.
|title=Introduction to the theory of matroids
|location=Santa Monica, Calif. |publisher=RAND Corporation report R-446-PR |year=1966}}. Also {{citation|ref=none |last=Tutte |first=W. T.
|title=Introduction to the theory of matroids
|series=Modern analytic and computational methods in science and mathematics |volume=37
|location=New York |publisher=American Elsevier Publishing Company |year=1971
|isbn=978-0-444-00096-5 |zbl=0231.05027}}
*{{citation|ref=none |editor-last=Tutte |editor-first=W. T.
|title=Recent progress in combinatorics. Proceedings of the third Waterloo conference on combinatorics, May 1968
|place=New York-London |publisher=Academic Press |year=1969 |pages=xiv+347
|isbn=978-0-12-705150-5 |zbl=0192.33101}}
*{{citation|ref=none |last=Tutte |first=W. T.
|editor-last=McCarthy |editor-first=D. |editor2-last=Stanton |editor2-first=R. G.
|title=Selected papers of W.T. Tutte, Vols. I, II.
|place=Winnipeg, Manitoba
|publisher=[[Charles Babbage Research Centre]], St. Pierre, Manitoba, Canada
|year=1979 |pages=xxi+879 |zbl=0403.05028}}
** Volume I: {{isbn|978-0-969-07781-7}}
** Volume II: {{isbn|978-0-969-07782-4}}
*{{citation|ref=none |last=Tutte |first=W. T. |title=Graph theory |series=Encyclopedia of mathematics and its applications |volume=21 |location=Menlo Park, California |publisher=Addison-Wesley Publishing Company |year=1984 |isbn=978-0-201-13520-6 |zbl=0554.05001 |url=https://archive.org/details/graphtheory0000tutt |url-access=registration }} Reprinted by Cambridge University Press 2001, {{isbn|978-0-521-79489-3}}
*{{citation|ref=none |last=Tutte |first=W. T.
|title=Graph theory as I have known it |series=Oxford lecture series in mathematics and its applications |volume=11
|location=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1998
|isbn=978-0-19-850251-7 |zbl=0915.05041}} Reprinted 2012, {{isbn|978-0-19-966055-1}}

===Articles===
*{{citation|ref=none | last1 = Brooks | first1 = R. L. | author-link = Rowland L. Brooks | author-link2 = Cedric Smith (statistician) | author-link3 = Arthur Harold Stone | last2 = Smith | first2 = C. A. B. | last3 = Stone | first3 = A. H. | last4 = Tutte | first4 = W. T. | year = 1940 | title = The Dissection of Rectangles into Squares | journal = Duke Math. J. | volume = 7 | pages = 312–340 | doi=10.1215/s0012-7094-40-00718-9}}
*{{citation
 | last = Tutte | first = W. T.
 | doi = 10.1112/plms/s3-13.1.743
 | journal = Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society
 | mr = 158387
 | pages = 743–767
 | ref = none
 | series = Third Series
 | title = How to draw a graph
 | volume = 13
 | year = 1963}}

==See also==
* [[List of University of Waterloo people]]
* [[Systolic geometry]]

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=nb}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
* {{Citation | last = Bauer | first = Friedrich L. | author-link = Friedrich L. Bauer | title = The Tiltman Break | year = 2006 }} Appendix 5 in {{Harvnb|Copeland|2006|pp=370–377}}
* {{Citation | last = Brzezinski | first = Zbigniew | author-link = Zbigniew Brzezinski | title = Marian Rejewski, 1905-1980: living with the Enigma secret | place = Bydgoszcz, Poland | publisher = Bydgoszcz City Council | year = 2005 | contribution = The Unknown Victors | editor-last = Ciechanowski | editor-first =Stanisław | pages =15–18 | isbn = 83-7208-117-4}}
* {{Citation | editor-last = Copeland | editor-first = B. Jack | editor-link = Jack Copeland | title = Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers | place = Oxford | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 2006 | isbn = 978-0-19-284055-4 }}
* {{Citation | last = Copeland | first = B. Jack | author-link = Jack Copeland | title = Colossus and the Dawning of the Computer Age|year=2011 }} in {{Harvnb|Erskine|Smith|2011|pp=305–327}}
* {{Citation | editor-last = Erskine | editor-first = Ralph | editor2-last = Smith | editor2-first = Michael | editor2-link = Michael Smith (newspaper reporter) | title = The Bletchley Park Codebreakers | publisher = Biteback Publishing Ltd | orig-year = 2001 | year = 2011 | isbn = 978-1-84954-078-0}} Updated and extended version of ''Action This Day: From Breaking of the Enigma Code to the Birth of the Modern Computer'' Bantam Press 2001
* {{Citation | last1 = Good | first1 = Jack | author-link = I. J. Good | last2 = Michie | first2 = Donald | author2-link = Donald Michie | last3 = Timms | first3 = Geoffrey | title = General Report on Tunny: With Emphasis on Statistical Methods | year = 1945 | id = UK Public Record Office HW 25/4 and HW 25/5 | url = http://www.alanturing.net/turing_archive/archive/index/tunnyreportindex.html | access-date = 15 September 2010 }} That version is a facsimile copy, but there is a transcript of much of this document in '.pdf' format at: {{Citation | last = Sale | first = Tony | author-link = Anthony Sale | title = Part of the 'General Report on Tunny', the Newmanry History, formatted by Tony Sale| year = 2001 | url = http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/documents/newman/newman.pdf | access-date = 20 September 2010 }}, and a web transcript of Part 1 at: {{Citation | last = Ellsbury | first = Graham | title = General Report on Tunny With Emphasis on Statistical Methods | url = http://www.ellsbury.com/tunny/tunny-001.htm | access-date = 3 November 2010 }}
* {{Citation | last = Good | first = Jack | author-link = I. J. Good | title = Enigma and Fish | year = 1993 }} in {{Harvnb|Hinsley|Stripp|1993|pp=149–166 }}
* {{Citation | editor-last = Hinsley | editor-first = F. H. | editor-link = Harry Hinsley | editor2-last = Stripp | editor2-first = Alan | year = 1993 | orig-year = 1992 | title = Codebreakers: The inside story of Bletchley Park | location = Oxford | publisher = Oxford University Press | isbn = 978-0-19-280132-6 }}
*{{Citation | last1 = O'Connor | first1 = J. J. | last2 = Robertson | first2 = E. F. | author2-link = Edmund F. Robertson | title = MacTutor Biography: William Thomas Tutte | publisher = University of St Andrews | year = 2003 | url = http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Tutte.html | access-date = 28 April 2013 }}
* {{Citation | last = Tutte | first = W. T. | author-link = W. T. Tutte | title = Fish and I | date = 19 June 1998 | url = http://www.usna.edu/Users/math/wdj/_files/documents/papers/cryptoday/tutte_fish.pdf | access-date = 7 April 2012 }} Transcript of a lecture given by Prof. Tutte at the [[University of Waterloo]]
* {{Citation | last = Tutte | first = William T. | author-link = W. T. Tutte | year = 2006 | title = My Work at Bletchley Park }} Appendix 4 in {{Harvnb|Copeland|2006|pp=352–369}}
* {{Citation | last = Ward | first = Mark | title = Code-cracking machine returned to life | work = BBC News | url = https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13566878 | access-date = 28 April 2013 | date=27 May 2011}}
* {{Citation | last = Younger | first = D. H. | title = Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society: William Thomas Tutte. 14 May 1917 – 2 May 2002 | journal = Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society | publisher = The Royal Society | year = 2012 | volume = 58 | pages = 283–297 | doi = 10.1098/rsbm.2012.0036 | url = http://rsbm.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/58/283 | access-date = 28 April 2013 | doi-access =  | s2cid = 73088374 }}

==External links==
* [http://math.uwaterloo.ca/combinatorics-and-optimization/about/professor-william-t-tutte Professor William T. Tutte]
*{{MathGenealogy |id=15096}}
* [http://www.math.binghamton.edu/zaslav/Oldcourses/580.S04/tutte.html William Tutte, 84, Mathematician and Code-breaker, Dies] – Obituary from ''[[The New York Times]]''
* [https://www.theguardian.com/obituaries/story/0,3604,712971,00.html William Tutte: Unsung mathematical mastermind] – Obituary from ''[[The Guardian]]''
* [http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/prix/recipients.html#2001 CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize – 2001 – William T. Tutte]
* [http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/audio/01-02/CRM-Fields/tutte/ "60 Years in the Nets" – a lecture (audio recording) given at the Fields Institute on 25 October 2001 to mark the receipt of the 2001 CRM-Fields Prize]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20020415122807/http://www.math.niu.edu/~rusin/known-math/97/tutte Tutte's disproof of Tait's conjecture]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20121226233428/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/9765962/Bletchleys-forgotten-heroes.html "Bletchley's forgotten heroes"], Ian Douglas, ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', 25 December 2012
*{{citation | last1 = Murty | first1 = U. S. R. | author-link1 = U. S. R. Murty | title = Dedication: Professor W.T. Tutte | journal = [[Journal of Combinatorial Theory]] | series = Series B | volume = 92 | issue = 2 | pages = 191–192 | year = 2004 | doi = 10.1016/j.jctb.2004.08.002| doi-access = free }}.
*{{citation | last1 = Younger | first1 = D. H. | title = Dedication: Professor W.T. Tutte | journal = [[Journal of Combinatorial Theory]] | series = Series B | volume = 92 | issue = 2 | pages = 193–198 | year = 2004 | doi = 10.1016/j.jctb.2004.09.002| doi-access = free }}.
* [https://www.cse-cst.gc.ca/en/culture-and-community/research The Tutte Institute for Research in Mathematics and Computer Science]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tutte, William Thomas}}
[[Category:1917 births]]
[[Category:2002 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Newmarket, Suffolk]]
[[Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:Bletchley Park people]]
[[Category:British cryptographers]]
[[Category:Cipher-machine cryptographers]]
[[Category:20th-century English mathematicians]]
[[Category:Graph theorists]]
[[Category:Graph drawing people]]
[[Category:History of computing in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Toronto]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Waterloo]]
[[Category:Officers of the Order of Canada]]
[[Category:British expatriate academics in Canada]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada]]
[[Category:Foreign Office personnel of World War II]]