Piet Hein (Denmark)

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Piet Hein
Piet Hein (Kumbel) in front of the H.C. Andersen statue in Copenhagen
Born	December 16, 1905(1905-12-16) Copenhagen, Denmark
Died	April 17, 1996 (aged 90) Funen, Denmark
Known for	Puzzles, Poems

Piet Hein (December 16, 1905 – April 17, 1996) was a Danish scientist, mathematician, inventor, author, and poet, often writing under the Old Norse pseudonym "Kumbel" meaning "tombstone". His short poems, gruks (or grooks), first started to appear in the daily newspaper "Politiken" shortly after the Nazi Occupation in April 1940 under the pseudonym "Kumbel Kumbell."

Contents 1 Biography 2 Work 3 Bibliography 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Biography

He was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He studied at the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the University of Copenhagen (later to become the Niels Bohr Institute), and Technical University of Denmark. Yale awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1972. He died in his home on Funen, Denmark in 1996.

He was a direct descendant of Piet Pieterszoon Hein, the Dutch naval hero of the 17th century.

[edit] Work

He is known to a wider public for his thousands of short, aphoristic poems called Grooks (Gruk in Danish) and creations like the games of Hex, Tangloids, Morra, Tower, Polytaire, TacTix, Nimbi, Qrazy Qube, Pyramystery, and the Soma cube. He advocated the use of the super ellipse curve in city planning, furniture making and other realms. He also invented a perpetual calendar called the Astro Calendar and marketed housewares based on the Superellipse and Super-egg.

[edit] Bibliography

• Grooks – 20 volumes, originally published between 1940 and 1963, all currently out-of-print

[edit] References

• Gardner, Martin: Piet Hein's Superellipse. - in Gardner, Martin: Mathematical Carnival. A New Round-Up of Tantalizers and Puzzles from Scientific American. New York: Vintage, 1977, pp. 240-254.
• Johan Gielis: Inventing the circle. The geometry of nature. - Antwerpen : Geniaal Press, 2003. - ISBN 90-807756-1-4
• "A Poet with a Slide Rule: Piet Hein Bestrides Art and Science," by Jim Hicks, Life Magazine, Vol. 61 No. 16, 10/14/66, pp.55-66

[edit] External links

• Piet Hein Homepage
• Notes on Piet Hein, including several sample grooks.
• Superellipse (MathWorld)
• Grooks by Piet Hein

Persondata
NAME	Hein, Piet
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Puzzle designer, mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH	1905-12-16
PLACE OF BIRTH	Copenhagen, Denmark
DATE OF DEATH	1996-04-17
PLACE OF DEATH	Funen, Denmark