Willem Abraham Wythoff

Willem Abraham Wijthoff, quoted in English also Wythoff, (* 1865 in Amsterdam, † 1939 ) was a Dutch mathematician.

Wijthoff was the son of a laborer in a sugar factory. He studied mathematics in Amsterdam, where he received his doctorate in 1898. 1899 to 1929 he was a member of the review magazine "Revue semestrielle of Publications Mathématiques ".

Wijthoff worked on number theory and following Ludwig Schläfli with the theory of polyhedra. Wijthoff found a construction ( Wythoffs Kaleidoscope design ) of regular polyhedra directly from their symmetry groups. His work was later continued by HSM Coxeter.

He is also known as the author of Wythoff game: two players take turns stones of two clusters with any number of stones. Either they take any number of stones from one pile or the same number of two clusters. Who takes the last stone wins. The solution is given by Fibonacci numbers.