Peter Hilton

Peter John Hilton (7 April 1923 – 6 November 2010) was a British mathematician, noted for his contributions to homotopy theory and for his participation in the WW II code-breaking project started by the famous 1941 Action This Day memorandum.

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Quotes

I would have wished that I could write in some detail of the nature of our work in those wonderfully exciting days. For we were regularly reading the highest grade cipher messages passing between the German High Command and a the senior echelons of the German army, the German navy (including the U-boat fleet) and the Luftwaffe; moreover, we were reading those messages within a few hours of their original transmission. We were thus able to provide as perfect and complete picture of the enemy's plans and dispositions as any nation at war has ever had at its disposal — not lightly did Churchill described our work as his "secret weapon," far more potent than anything Werner von Braun could deploy against us. Unfortunately, the British government currently is behaving in a remarkably paranoid fashion with respect to the revelations of "secrets" by those who at some time (as, of course, I had to do) taken an oath of confidentiality.
- "Reminiscences of Bletchley Park, 1942–1945 by Peter Hilton". A Century of Mathematics in America. American Mathematical Society. 1988. pp. 291–302. ISBN 978-0-8218-0124-6. (edited by Peter L. Duren, Richard Askey, Uta C. Merzbach, and Harold M. Edwards; quote from 292)

I also attended his eightieth birthday celebration in Binghamton, New York, in 2003. Peter gave a wonderful polished talk about his experiences at Bletchley Park in World War II, which was informative and moving and made a political point.
I noticed that he frequently paused to refer to a very small sheaf of notes in his hand. He left the papers on the rostrum after the talk, and out of curiosity I took a look. They were blank! It was a stage prop.
- Bill Browder, in Jean Pedersen, coordinating editor: (December 2011)"Peter Hilton: Codebreaker and Mathematician (1923–2010)". Notices of the American Mathematical Society 58 (11): 1538–1551. (quote from p. 1543)