Hugh Williams

One of the members of the IBM team that developed the plan for unbundling software from hardware in 1969, Williams is also known for solving the Archimedes Cattle Problem. In June of 1965, Williams, along with Gus German and Robert Zarnke, solved the Archimedes Cattle Problem. No complete solution to the problem had ever been devised by mathematicians in over 2,000 years. The problem was first proposed by the Greek mathematician Archimedes of Alexandria in 200 BC. The UW team used a combination of the IBM 7040 and 1620 computers to produce the solution, which had over 200,000 digits. When they successfully solved the problem, Wes Graham contacted major newspapers to ensure that the team, who had laboured in their spare time, received full credit for their work.