Henry Dudeney

Henry Ernest Dudeney

Henry Ernest Dudeney (born April 10, 1857 in Mayfield (East Sussex) , † April 24, 1930 in Lewes , Sussex ) was an English author of entertainment mathematics.

life and work

Dudeney's interest in mathematical puzzles was aroused by his grandfather, who learned mathematics and astronomy on his own and thus went from shepherd to school teacher. His father was also a school teacher, but Dudeney himself did not attend secondary school, but worked as a small administrative clerk from the age of 13. But he was interested in puzzles and chess and at the age of nine he began to send puzzles he had thought up to newspapers under the pseudonym “Sphinx”. With the American puzzle master Sam Loyd , he published a series of articles in the weekly "Tit-Bits" from 1893. He later published under his own name in "The Weekly Dispatch", "The Queen", "Blighty", "Cassel's Magazine" and for over 30 years in the column "Perplexities" in "The Strand". His collaboration with Loyd ended in an argument - Dudeney accused him of stealing ideas for puzzles and publishing them under his own name.

One of his most famous puzzles is the "Haberdasher Problem" from 1903 (you cut an equilateral triangle into four parts and put them together to form a square). He also invented puzzles in which letters replace digits (“Verbal Arithmetic”), e.g. B. in addition problems. His puzzle books were very popular. Dudeney was one of the founding members of the British Chess Problem Society in 1918.

In 1884 he married Alice Whiffin (1864–1945), who went by the name “Mrs. Henry Dudeney “became a popular writer at the time of rural novels (and short stories for Harper's Magazine), and with her book income, the family relieved of all financial worries. They had a daughter, Margery, who emigrated to the United States with her husband. In 1914 Dudeney moved to Lewes, where he died of throat cancer in 1930.

In addition to his puzzles, Dudeney's favorite pastimes were billiards, bowling and croquet. He was also a passionate pianist and organist interested in ancient church music (as well as Anglican theology in general).

Fonts

• The Canterbury Puzzles. (1907)
• Amusements in Mathematics. (1917)
• The World's Best Word Puzzles. (1925)
• Modern puzzles. (1926)
• Puzzles and Curious Problems. (1931, posthumously, edited by the widow)
• A puzzle mine. (posthumously)
• Martin Gardner (Editor): Dudeney's 536 puzzles and curious problems. 1967

literature

• Newing: The life and work of HEDudeney. Mathematical Spectrum, Vol. 21, 1988/9, p. 37

Web links

• John J. O'Connor, Edmund F. Robertson :  Henry Dudeney. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .
• Dudeney: Amusements in Mathematics. at Project Gutenberg

Remarks

1. ↑ Dudeney was the mathematically more profound of the two.
2. ↑ Her diaries were edited by Diana Crook in 1998: A Lewes Diary 1916-1944.