Charles Howard Hinton
Charles Howard Hinton ( 1853 - April 30, 1907 in Washington, DC ) was a British mathematician , early science fiction writer and eccentric . He coined the word tesseract but is better known for his work on methods of visualizing the geometry of higher dimensions . He was also very interested in theosophy . As an author, his influence on HG Wells and his novel The Time Machine can be clearly seen.
In the article What is the fourth dimension? ( What is the fourth dimension?, 1880), Hinton calls time the fourth dimension. This idea was taken up by Albert Einstein in his theory of relativity . Hinton later presented a thought experiment that was supposed to enable humans to see four-dimensional space ( hyperspace ). He envisioned a large cube made up of 36 × 36 × 36 (46656 total) one-inch smaller cubes, and gave each of the smaller cubes a Latin name. Rumor has it that imitators of this thought experiment went mad. Hinton packed his theses in his Scientific Romances ( Wissenschaftliche Erzählungen , 1888) but:
“ Hinton is not a narrator, he is a lonely sensible man who instinctively entrenches himself in a world of speculation that never abandons him, the creator and source. "
During his studies at Oxford , Hinton also taught at Cheltenham Ladies College. In 1877 he received his bachelor's degree . From 1880 to 1886 he taught at the Uppingham School in Rutland . He received his Master of Arts in Oxford in 1886.
In England, Hinton was convicted of bigamy . He was married to both Mary Ellen (the daughter of Mary Everest Boole and George Boole , the founder of modern mathematical logic ) and Maud Wheldon. He served a day of his sentence and went first to Japan in 1886 and from there in 1893 as a lecturer in mathematics at Princeton University .
In 1897 he built for baseball , a team with the University of gunpowder -powered baseball throwing machine . When he moved from Princeton to the University of Minnesota , he took the machine with him. He stayed in Minnesota until 1900 and went from there to the United States Naval Observatory in Washington DC
At the end of his life he worked as a patent examiner in Washington DC
Hinton died unexpectedly of a cerebral haemorrhage on April 30, 1907 .
Published in German
- Scientific stories Edition Weitbrecht, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 978-3-522-71100-5
- Scientific stories in the Gutenberg Book Guild , 2007, ISBN 978-3-7632-5810-9
Web links
- Literature by and about Charles Howard Hinton in the catalog of the German National Library
- Charles Howard Hinton in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (English)
- Works by and about Charles Howard Hinton at Open Library
- Hinton's writings in English
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hinton, Charles Howard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British mathematician, early science fiction writer and eccentric |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1853 |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 30, 1907 |
| Place of death | Washington, DC |