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.

References
  1. Birth year from German National Library catalog entry, retrieved 2020-09-25
  2. Chair Operations Research, University of Jena, retrieved 2020-09-25
  3. Ingo Althöfer at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  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
  5. Fraenkel, Aviezri (August 2012), "Combinatorial Games: Selected Bibliography with a Succinct Gourmet Introduction", The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, 1000, doi:10.37236/22
  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, 10664, Springer, pp. 13–25, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-71649-7_2
  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)
  8. "Drei Hirn (Althoefer)", ChessGames.com, retrieved 2020-09-25
  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, 6515, Springer, pp. 145–155, doi:10.1007/978-3-642-17928-0_14
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