Gordon Welchman

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William Gordon Welchman (born  June 15, 1906 in Bristol , England , †  October 8, 1985 in Newburyport , USA ) was an English mathematician .

Life

His desk is now in the BP museum

He was next to Alan Turing one of the leaders in the north of London located Bletchley Park (BP ) and carried there as a Codebreaker ( " code breaker ") much to the fact that during the Second World War with the German Enigma encrypted radio messages deciphered were.

He was mainly responsible for the work in Hut Six (Barrack 6), in which the radio messages from the German Army and the Air Force were deciphered. One of his outstanding achievements is the diagonal board ( German  for " diagonal board " ), with which he decisively improved the effectiveness of the electromechanical deciphering machine ( English Turing bomb ) used there. Through his contribution it became the Turing Welchman bomb and the basis of the almost " assembly line deciphering" of German radio messages organized by him , which contributed significantly to the course, if not the outcome of the war (see also: Historical Consequences of the Enigma Decipherment ).

After the war Welchman emigrated to the United States .

Fonts

  • The Hut Six Story: Breaking the Enigma Codes. M&M Baldwin, Cleobury Mortimer, 2000, ISBN 0-947712-34-8

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gordon Welchman: The Hut Six Story - Breaking the Enigma Codes . Allen Lane, London 1982; Cleobury Mortimer M&M, Baldwin Shropshire 2000, p. 11. ISBN 0-947712-34-8
personal data
SURNAME Welchman, Gordon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Welchman, William Gordon (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British mathematician and cryptanalyst
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Bristol
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1985
Place of death Newburyport