Piet Hein: astro-gymnastics

Piet Hein: astro-gymnastics

Go on a starlit night, stand on your head, leave your feet dangling outwards into space, and let the starry firmament you tread be, for the moment, your elected base. Feel Earth's colossal weight of ice and granite, of molten magma, water, iron, and lead; and briefly hold this strangely solid planet balanced upon your ...
Piet Hein: the paradox of life

Piet Hein: the paradox of life

A bit beyond perception's reach I sometimes believe I see that Life is two locked boxes, each containing the other's key. – Piet Hein (scientist, mathematician, inventor, designer, author, and poet extraordinare) ...
Piet Hein: what art is

Piet Hein: what art is

Art is this: art is the solution of a problem which cannot be expressed explicitly until it is solved. The shaping of the question is part of the answer. – Piet Hein (scientist, mathematician, inventor, designer, author, and poet extraordinare) ...
Piet Hein: pennies and indecision

Piet Hein: pennies and indecision

Whenever you're called on to make up your mind, and you're hampered by not having any, the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find, is simply by spinning a penny. No — not so that chance shall decide the affair while you're passively standing there moping; but the moment the penny is up in ...
superegg lamp

Piet Hein, danish design and the super-egg

Piet Hein was a modern danish renaissance man. He was born in 1905, died in 1996, studied mathematics, started art studies he never finished, started studies in theoretical physics and never finished that either. He wrote books, poetry ("gruks"); did illustration, designed objects and public spaces, researched mathematics and was a cosmopolitan. He is famous ...
Piet Hein: the nature of efficiency

Piet Hein: the nature of efficiency

In some instances, "efficiency" is the same as reading a sundial with the help of a flashlight. – Piet Hein (scientist, mathematician, inventor, designer, author, and poet extraordinare) ...