Charles Howard Hinton

Charles Howard Hinton (* 1853, † April 30, 1907 in Washington DC) was a British mathematician, author, early science fiction and eccentrics. He coined the word tesseract, but is better known for his work on methods for visualizing the geometry of higher dimensions. He was also interested strongly in theosophy. As an author, his influence on HG Wells and his novel The Time Machine can be seen clearly.

In the article What is the fourth dimension? (What is the fourth dimension? , 1880), Hinton refers to the time as the fourth dimension. This idea was taken up by Albert Einstein in his theory of relativity. Later Hinton presented a thought experiment that should allow the people to see the four-dimensional space ( hyperspace ). He envisioned a large cube in front, composed of 36x36x36 ( 46656 total ) each one inch, smaller cubes, and gave each of the smaller cubes a Latin name. Rumor has it that this thought experiment imitators have gone mad. His theses packaged Hinton in his Scientific Romances ( Scientific stories, 1888), but:

" Hinton is not a narrator, he is a solitary reasoners, the instinctively holed up in a world of speculation, the Creator and source, never let him down. "

During his studies at Oxford Hinton taught simultaneously at Cheltenham Ladies College. In 1877 he received the Bachelor. From 1880 to 1886 he taught at the Uppingham School in Rutland. His Master of Arts he received in 1886 in Oxford.

In England Hinton was convicted of bigamy. He was both Mary Ellen ( daughter of Mary Everest Boole and George Boole, the founder of modern mathematical logic), and married to Maud Wheldon. He served one days of his sentence in 1886 and went first to Japan and from there in 1893 as a lecturer in mathematics at Princeton University.

In 1897 he built a gunpowder -powered baseball throwing machine for the baseball team of the University. When he moved to the University of Minnesota from Princeton, he took with the machine. He remained until 1900 in Minnesota and went from there to the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington DC

At the end of his life he worked as a patent examiner in Washington DC

Hinton died on April 30, 1907 unexpectedly of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Published on German

• Scientific narratives in the Books Gutenberg, 2007, ISBN 978-3-7632-5810-9