- Shaun Wylie
Shaun Wylie (born
17 January 1913 ) is a Britishmathematician and former World War II codebreaker.Wylie was born in
Headington ,Oxford ,England , and educated atDragon School and thenWinchester College . [http://libweb.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/finding_aids/mathoral/pmc45.htm An interview with Shaun Wylie] on21 June 1985 , The Princeton Mathematics Community in the 1930s, Transcript Number 45 (PMC45)] He won a scholarship toNew College, Oxford where he studied mathematics and classics. In 1934, he went to studytopology atPrinceton University , obtaining a PhD in 1937 withSolomon Lefschetz as his supervisor. [http://www.genealogy.ams.org/html/id.phtml?id=1406 Shaun Wylie] in the Mathematics Genealogy Project] At Princeton he met fellow English mathematicianAlan Turing .During
World War II , Turing was atBletchley Park , Britain's codebreaking centre. Turing wrote to Wylie around December 1940, who was by then teaching at Wellington College, inviting him to work at Bletchley Park.Andrew Hodges, "Alan Turing: The Enigma", 1983, p. 198] He accepted, and arrived in February 1941. He joined Turing's section,Hut 8 , which was working on solving theEnigma machine as used by theGerman Navy . He became head of the crib subsection, [Michael Smith, "Station X", revised edition 2004, p. 117] and was a member of a panel of five "bombe controllers" established in mid-1942 to decide how to allocate time on the codebreaking machines. [Ralph Erskine, 2001, p. 58]Wylie transferred in Autumn 1943 to work on "Tunny", a German teleprinter cipher [Wylie, 2001, p. 318] . He married Odette Murray, a
WREN in the section. [Smith, 2004, pp. 159-160] In 1945, soon after thevictory in Europe , Wylie demonstrated how Colossus — electronic machines used to help solve Tunny — could have been used unmodified to break the Tunny "motor wheels", a task which had been previously done by hand. [Randall, 2006, p. 148] While at Bletchley Park, he became president of the dramatic club, and won an unarmed combat competition.Kahn, 1991, pp. 137-138] He had also played internationalhockey , for Scotland, but according to fellow codebreakerI. J. Good , he "never mentioned any of his successes".Good, 2006, p. 209]After the war, he was a fellow at
Trinity Hall and lectured in mathematics."Notes on contributors", p. 532 in Michael Smith and Ralph Erskine, editors, "Action This Day", 2001] He was the PhD advisor forFrank Adams , Crispin Nash-Williams,William Tutte andChristopher Zeeman . WithPeter Hilton , he authored "Homology Theory: An Introduction to Algebraic Topology", published in 1960.In 1958, he became Chief Mathematician at
GCHQ , the UKsignals intelligence organisation. In July 1969, he was sent a draft paper byJames H. Ellis , another GCHQ mathematician, about the possibility of what was termed "non-secret encryption", or what is now more commonly known aspublic-key cryptography , on which Wylie commented "unfortunately, I can't see anything wrong with this".Steven Levy, "Crypto", 2001, p. 318] He retired in 1973, and taught atCambridgeshire High School for Boys (laterHills Road Sixth Form College ) in Cambridge for seven years.His son, the late Keith Wylie, a barrister, was a croquet international and open champion of Great Britain.
Notes
References
* Ralph Erskine, "Breaking Air Force and Army Enigma", pp. 47-76 in Michael Smith and Ralph Erskine eds., "Action This Day", 2001
* David Kahn, "Seizing the Enigma", 1991
* Brian Randall, "Of Men and Machines", pp. 141-149 in B. Jack Copeland editor, "Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers", Oxford University Press, 2006
* Shaun Wylie, "Breaking Tunny and the Birth of Colossus", pp. 317-348 in Michael Smith and Ralph Erskine, editors, "Action This Day", 2001,
* Jack Good, "From Hut 8 to the Newmanry", pp. 204-222 in B. Jack Copeland editor, "Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers", Oxford University Press, 2006External links
* [http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/research/programmes/past/1999_00/other_items_99-2000/ecz_meeting_2000/zeeman_wylie.html Photograph of Christopher Zeeman and Shaun Wylie] taken circa 2000
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.