From Cedric Smith, University College London
Bill Tutte, when he came to Bletchley, was not “a young mathematician from Cambridge” (“Colossal adventures”, 10 May, p 38), but a postgraduate student of chemistry without formal mathematical training—which makes his achievement all the more remarkable.
I remember that during the war I was cycling down Trumpington Street in Cambridge when I passed Patrick Duff, Bill’s college tutor. He shouted “Stop! Stop!! STOP!!!”
I wondered what disaster might have happened, but he explained: “Some people came to us and said that we ought to elect Bill to a college fellowship. But they would not say what he had done, nor even where he was living, so we can’t send him a telegram of congratulation. Do you know his address?”
Since the war Tutte has become a distinguished professor of mathematics, a Fellow of the Royal Society and also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, which shows what you can achieve by studying chemistry.
Advertisement
London
