Ingo Althöfer

Ingo Althöfer (born 1961)^[1] is a German mathematician at the University of Jena, where he holds the chair of operations research.^[2]

Althöfer earned his Ph.D. in 1986 at Bielefeld University. His dissertation, Asymptotic Properties of Certain Competition Systems in Artificial Intelligence and Ecology, was supervised by Rudolf Ahlswede.^[3]

Contributions

Topics in Althöfer's professional research include the realization of finite metric spaces by shortest path metrics in graphs and their approximation by greedy spanners,^[4] algorithmic game theory and combinatorial game theory,^[5] and heuristic search algorithms for optimization problems.

Althöfer is also known for his inventions of games and puzzles, including dice game EinStein würfelt nicht!,^[6] for his experiments with self-assembly of Lego building blocks by running them through a washing machine,^[7] and for his innovations in computer-human chess playing. In the 1990s he tested his "drei hirn" ["3-brains"] system, in which a human decides between the choices of two computer chess players, against strong human players including grandmaster David Bronstein and woman grandmaster Sofia Polgar.^[8] In 2004 he and Timo Klaustermeyer introduced freestyle chess, a style of human chess playing allowing arbitrary consultation with computers or other people.^[9]

Books

With Hartmut Menzer, Althöfer is the author of the book Zahlentheorie und Zahlenspiele: Sieben ausgewählte Themenstellungen [Number theory and number games: seven selected topics] (2009; 2nd ed., De Gruyter, 2014). With Roland Voigt, he is the author of Spiele, Rätsel, Zahlen: Faszinierendes zu Lasker-Mühle, Sudoku-Varianten, Havannah, EinStein würfelt nicht, Yavalath, 3-Hirn-Schach, ... [Games, puzzles, numbers: fascinating things about Lasker-Mühle, Sudoku variants, Havannah, EinStein würfelt nicht!, Yavalath, 3-brain chess, ...] (Springer, 2014).

He has also self-published other books through his personal publishing company, 3-Hirn Verlag, and is one of the editors of the multi-volume book series Rudolf Ahlswede’s Lectures on Information Theory.

Selected Papers

Nim games with arbitrary periodic moving orders. International Journal of Game Theory, Volume 17, 1988, pp 165–175.
Data compression using an intelligent generator: the storage of chess games as an example. Artificial Intelligence, Volume 52, 1991, pp 109–113.
Improved game play by multiple computer hints. Theoretical Computer Science, Volume 313, 2004, pp 315–324.
Computer Chess and Chess Computers in East Germany. ICGA Journal, Volume 42, 2020, pp 152–164.

Selected Board Games

EinStein würfelt nicht! (2005)
Galtoni (2012), a mixture of Connect Four and the Galton board
San Jego (2015), a variant of Clobber

References

^ Birth year from German National Library catalog entry, retrieved 2020-09-25
^ Chair Operations Research, University of Jena, retrieved 2020-09-25
^ Ingo Althöfer at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
^ Ahmed, Reyan; Bodwin, Greg; Sahneh, Faryad Darabi; Hamm, Keaton; Jebelli, Mohammad Javad Latifi; Kobourov, Stephen; Spence, Richard (August 2020), "Graph spanners: A tutorial review", Computer Science Review, 37: 100253, arXiv:1909.03152, doi:10.1016/j.cosrev.2020.100253, S2CID 202539199
^ Fraenkel, Aviezri (August 2012), "Combinatorial Games: Selected Bibliography with a Succinct Gourmet Introduction", The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, 1000, doi:10.37236/22
^ Bonnet, François; Viennot, Simon (2017), "Toward Solving "EinStein würfelt nicht!"", in Winands, Mark H.M.; van den Herik, H. Jaap; Kosters, Walter A. (eds.), Advances in Computer Games: 15th International Conferences, ACG 2017, Leiden, The Netherlands, July 3–5, 2017, Revised Selected Papers, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 10664, Springer, pp. 13–25, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-71649-7_2
^ Lossau, Norbert (25 September 2018), "Warum ein Mathematiker Legosteine in die Waschmaschine steckt" [Why a mathematician puts Lego blocks in the washing machine], Die Welt (in German)
^ "Drei Hirn (Althoefer)", ChessGames.com, retrieved 2020-09-25
^ Cook, Darren (2011), "A Human-Computer Team Experiment for 9x9 Go", in van den Herik, H. Jaap; Iida, Hiroyuki; Plaat, Aske (eds.), Computers and Games: 7th International Conference, CG 2010, Kanazawa, Japan, September 24-26, 2010, Revised Selected Papers, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 6515, Springer, pp. 145–155, doi:10.1007/978-3-642-17928-0_14

External links

Home page
3-Hirn Verlag, Althöfer's book publishing company

[born-1] Birth year from German National Library catalog entry, retrieved 2020-09-25

[cos-2] Chair Operations Research, University of Jena, retrieved 2020-09-25

[mg-3] Ingo Althöfer at the Mathematics Genealogy Project

[spanners-4] Ahmed, Reyan; Bodwin, Greg; Sahneh, Faryad Darabi; Hamm, Keaton; Jebelli, Mohammad Javad Latifi; Kobourov, Stephen; Spence, Richard (August 2020), "Graph spanners: A tutorial review", Computer Science Review, 37: 100253, arXiv:1909.03152, doi:10.1016/j.cosrev.2020.100253, S2CID 202539199

[combgame-5] Fraenkel, Aviezri (August 2012), "Combinatorial Games: Selected Bibliography with a Succinct Gourmet Introduction", The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, 1000, doi:10.37236/22

[bonvie-6] Bonnet, François; Viennot, Simon (2017), "Toward Solving "EinStein würfelt nicht!"", in Winands, Mark H.M.; van den Herik, H. Jaap; Kosters, Walter A. (eds.), Advances in Computer Games: 15th International Conferences, ACG 2017, Leiden, The Netherlands, July 3–5, 2017, Revised Selected Papers, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 10664, Springer, pp. 13–25, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-71649-7_2

[lego-7] Lossau, Norbert (25 September 2018), "Warum ein Mathematiker Legosteine in die Waschmaschine steckt" [Why a mathematician puts Lego blocks in the washing machine], Die Welt (in German)

[drei-8] "Drei Hirn (Althoefer)", ChessGames.com, retrieved 2020-09-25

[cook-9] Cook, Darren (2011), "A Human-Computer Team Experiment for 9x9 Go", in van den Herik, H. Jaap; Iida, Hiroyuki; Plaat, Aske (eds.), Computers and Games: 7th International Conference, CG 2010, Kanazawa, Japan, September 24-26, 2010, Revised Selected Papers, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 6515, Springer, pp. 145–155, doi:10.1007/978-3-642-17928-0_14

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