E-Mail.
|
|
SOMA News |
15 Jnly 2016 & 20 july 2017
E-Mail. |
We are all wondering about the creation history for the SOMA puzzle. Intertwined as it is
with science at the highest level. Lending its creativeness to puzzlers of all ages.
Used privately as in schools, in miniature and at immense sizes larger than a human.
According to "the official" history Mr. Piet Hein had his idea for the SOMA puzzle in 1936,
while attending a lecture about quantum physics, given by Mr. Werner Heisenberg.
We may raise questions to this "birth" and on my web pages about SOMA I
seek to gather as much relevant information about SOMA as possible.
It is indeed a fascinating subject, combining the modern thoughts of space divided in
(almost) infinitely small quantized steps, combined with the simple puzzle of SOMA.
The references and articles gathered, do support the notion that Mr. Piet
Hein heard the easter 1930 text, and thus giving him ample time to envision his toy
and apply for patent in 1933.
It is, I believe, not probable that he envisioned the 7 puzzle pieces during the
lecture itself, but rather more likely that he came to the cubical space and the
idea of a puzzle afterwards, while thinking back upon the intentions of Mr.
Heisenberg's text.
At least this is how I find myself to be thinking.
Hearing a presentation makes an imprint, and then later upon summing up the
entirety of the presentation, new ideas tend to present them selves.
If you have any changes or addition, then mail it to me, together with explanation and references to the changes. | ||||||
| Year | Event | Image | Relation | |||
| 1905.12.16 | It all started with Mr. Piet Hein |  Foto.
| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Hein_(Denmark) | |||
| 1930.02.26 | Werner Heisenberg first reported about his idea in a letter to Bohr | |||||
| 1930.03.~12 | The key document for understanding Werner Heisenberg's early lattice world | The date is approximate - "2 weeks later than 02.26" is stated in some documents. | ||||
| 1930.--.-- |
Werner Heisenberg wrote a letter to Bohr (translated in an article)
and talked about it at a conference in Copenhagen, Easter 1930 (mentioned in the article)
"Gernot Münster once told Andreas Kronfeld that this idea might be connected to Soma." | Newsletter 2012.12.19 Heisenbergs lattice world 1930 [See page 597] | ||||
| 1930 Fall | In a paper Werner Heisenberg deals with the self energy of the electron, and an initial quantified space "Lattice world" | “Heisenberg’s lattice world: The 1930 theory sketch” Was released in the Fall 1930 - Possibly allowing Piet Hein to find his idea. | ||||
| 1932.--.-- | Mr. Heisenberg had received the Nobel Prize in Physics | |||||
| 1933.12.02 | Application for patent, the idea is now protected | Image.
| ||||
| 1933.12.11 | Heisenberg gives his Nobel Lecture on "The development of quantum mechanics" | |||||
| 1934.03.20 | Applied for a patent in UK | |||||
| 1934.11.29 |
The patent was issued in UK. Original SOMA puzzles, based on the initial idea is released. Among these the manufacturer Erik Willumsen release his wooden version. | Foto.
| ||||
| 1936.09.12 | Requested patent in Denmark | |||||
| 1936.09.28 | The patent was issued in Denmark | |||||
| 1961.--.-- | Martin Gardner writes of SOMA in a "issue 2" SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN book of Mathematical Puzzles & Diversions | |||||
| 1967.--.-- | Piet Hein starts a cooperation with Theodor Skjøde, and market a very pretty Rosewood somacube on a wooden base. | Foto.
| Theodor Skjøde sitting on a large SOMA in his garden. | |||
| Foto.
| The pretty Rosewood somacube on a wooden base. This is generally the version that most people consider the "original" SOMA. | |||||
| 1967.--.-- | Skjøde starts to market a version of the Rosewood cube, on an aluminium base. | Foto.
| ||||
| 1967.--.-- | The original Danish SOMA booklet from SKJØDE (c) Piet Hein 1967 [The version I had acces to] | Foto.
| ||||
| 1969.summer |
Marketing rights for the USA market, is given to Parker Brothers Inc. and
they start producing a red and a blue version in solid plastic.
When did Parker Brothers Inc. Salem. Mass. actually start making SOMA ?? | Foto.
Foto.
| ||||
| 1969.Info |
On 2017-04-29 David W. Schultz wrote to me. I still have my SOMA red plastic cube but alas not the instructions. The loss of those instructions provides a date since I slipped the instructions through the mail slot of my friends apartment but he didn't get them and they vanished. I was living at Wright Patterson AFB [Air Force Base] (Dayton Ohio) at the time and my dad was transferred to another base sometime after the end of the 67/68 school year. I suspect the cube was a gift, either at Christmas 1967 or more likely my birthday in April 1968. It could have been earlier but not later. This might lead to the conclusion that Parker Brothers Inc. produced the SOMA somewhere in the timespan 1967-12 to 1968-04. This also supports the newest findings we have in the Booklets collection. Newsletter 2016.08.17 We know that the Danish compagny "Skjoede" produced SOMA in 1967 And we know that the English "Parker" produced a booklet in 1969 We also have a booklet that we assume to be 19xx when looking at the design, and the textual layout. This booklet is similar to the Danish booklet. Indicating that "Parker" made SOMA before 1969 using this booklet, and then wrote their own newer version that started to appear in 1969. So with David's story, It is most likely that Parker started production in 1967. | |||||
| 1970.--.-- |
Parker Brothers Inc. Salem. Mass. started issuing "SOMA Addict Magazine".
Only 4 issues are known. (1970)Vol1.No1 - (1970)Vol1.No2 - (1971)Vol2.No1 - (1972)Vol2.No2 | Scan.
| A total of 4 'Addicts' were issued. http://www.fam-bundgaard.dk/SOMA/NEWS/N990118ADDICT.HTM | |||
| -.-.- | Hereafter several years pass, and various "skunk works" emerges. Without production permission from the P.Hein. organization. | Foto.
| Block by block | |||
| -.-.- | It is among these we find a large number of fine wood versions, in cardboard boxes or in wooden boxes. | Foto.
| ||||
| 1985.-.- | We start to see software solvers. | Screen.
| The SOLVER program in DOS/BASIC | |||
| 1998.11.22 | Thorleif's SOMA web pages appear. | http://www.fam-bundgaard.dk/SOMA/SOMA.HTM | ||||
| 1999.09.16 | In addition to these we also see SOMA versions made in, paper origami, rubber foam, glued dice, cardboard boxes, etc. | Foto.
| SOMA from 27 dice | |||
| 2000.11.28 | And we start to see software game versions, first for the PC-DOS, then for Windows, then linux, and finally for mobile phones. | Foto.
| ||||
| 2006.08.08 | Finally we see giant versions made in large cardboard or from wood plates the size of about 1meter=3feet | Foto.
| ||||
| 2006.11.02 | The Piet Hein Corp. release a SOMA for kindergardens, measuring 1 meter on its sides. | Foto.
| ||||
| 2012.09.27 | Andreas S. Kronfeld write about "Lattice Gauge Theory and the Origin of Mass" referring to Werner Heisenberg’s Gitterwelt and Piet Hein’s Soma |
The document is Archived 2012.09.27 and dated 2012.09.28
Newsletter 2012.12.19 Heisenbergs lattice world 1930 Werner Heisenberg hoped for more from the lattice than mere mathematical rigor. | ||||
| ----.--.-- | -- | Foto.
| -- | |||
.jpg){kind=link}
In a 1930 letter to Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberd argued that a universe with a fundamental length,
such as a spatial lattice spacing, would not suffer from many problems (then) facing
quantum field theory and nuclear and atomic physics.
For a translation of the letter and reconstruction of Heisenberg’s ideas, see Carazza and Kragh.152
152. B. Carazza and H. Kragh, Heisenberg’s lattice world: The 1930 theory sketch, Am.
J. Phys. 63, 595–605, (1995). doi: 10.1119/1.17848.
153. W. Heisenberg, Die Selbstenergie des Elektrons, Z. Phys. 65, 4–13, (1930). doi:
10.1007/BF01397404.
154. H. Kragh, Arthur March, Werner Heisenberg, and the search for a smallest length,
Revue d’Histoire des Sciences. 48(4), 401–434, (1995). doi: 10.3406/rhs.1995.1239.
155. C. T. Hill. private communication.
156. O. P. Pedersen and T. Bundgaard. The birth of SOMA? URL http://www.
fam-bundgaard.dk/SOMA/NEWS/N030310.HTM. (Retrieved August 2012).
157. M. Gardner, The Second Scientific American Book of Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions.
(University of Chicago, Chicago, 1987).
[Quote from page 19:]
Bohr responded disapprovingly to the idea. Heisenberg did not publish a paper on his
“Gitterwelt” (“lattice world”), as it came to be known, although he did make a
technical remark that the lattice tames the ultraviolet divergence in the electron’s
self energy.153 Nevertheless, Heisenberg’s Gitterwelt developed a philosophical and
scientific following, which was met with some disdain.152,154 I’ve been told155 that
when Wilson presented his lattice gauge theory in a seminar at Caltech, he deflected
an aggressive line of questioning from Richard Feynman with, “I am not a kook; this
is not a kook’s lattice!” This give-and-take seems to reflect a lingering apprehension
against a lattice as fundamental, while underappreciating its mathematical utility.
A lasting outgrowth of Heisenberg’s lattice world lies not in theoretical physics
but in a geometric puzzle called Soma, which was created by the Danish inventor and
poet Piet Hein.156,157 Sometime in the early 1930s, Hein—among other avocations
a physics groupie—attended a lecture by Heisenberg in Copenhagen. Whether the
lecture was on the quantization of QED or on the lattice world, no one seems to
know. Bored, Hein sketched .........etc.etc.[End quote]
 |
 |