W. T. Williams
William Thomas Williams
Biography
Williams was born 18 April 1913 in Fulham, London, England, the only child of a Welsh coal miner.[1][2] He went to the Stationers' Company's School in London and then to the
During World War II, he served in the Royal Artillery, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, and Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. He enlisted as a private (neglecting to inform the military about his degrees) but eventually reached the rank of major.[1][2]
After the war, he became a lecturer at
In 1965, Williams' former Southampton colleague Godfrey Lance invited him to visit the
Williams retired from CSIRO in 1973, at which point he moved from Brisbane to Townsville. During his retirement he continued to work as a consultant for several institutions.[1][2]
Research
Williams' early work was on plant physiology, and more specifically on leaf expansion and the function of the Stomata. However, while at Southampton he became interested in more mathematical and statistical research topics such as the spatial distribution of plants. At the same time, he began writing software for his statistical analysis, using the Ferranti Pegasus computer then available at Southampton's computer centre. The centre's director, Godfrey Lance, was later to become a regular research collaborator of Williams.[2]
Williams' most heavily cited research work, with Lance, makes the observation that five different hierarchical clustering strategies then in use could all be related to each other: all five use formulas for the distance between clusters that vary only in the weights of certain numerical coefficients. This unification allowed the coefficients to be chosen based on their effect on the overall clustering rather than, as had been done before, selecting the clustering strategy on an ad hoc basis.[2][3]
Williams and Lance also introduced the
Recognizing the general applicability of these methods, Williams went on at CSIRO to apply them to problems other than plant taxonomy, as well as to the classification of
Other activities
Williams was an avid composer of mathematical puzzles; for instance, he wrote the cross-figure puzzle "The Little Pigley Farm" (also known as Dog's Mead, Little Pigley, Little Piggly Farm, Little Pigsby, Pilgrims' Plot, or Dog Days) which he first published in 1935 in The Strand Magazine.[6][7]
Long a self-taught piano player, Williams took lessons after moving to Australia, earned a credential, and taught piano himself. He also organised the first North Queensland Piano Competition.[2]
Awards and honours
In 1973, the
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Walker, Rosanne (2006), "Biographical Entry: Williams, William Thomas (1913–1995)", Encyclopedia of Australian Science.
- ^ .
- .
- .
- JSTOR 2258396
- ^ Pomerantz, Joel, The Little Pigley Farm.
- ^ Sit, William Y. (1998), On crossnumber puzzles and the Lucas–Bonaccio farm (PDF), archived from the original (PDF) on 26 August 2011, retrieved 13 September 2011.