Ingo Althöfer

Ingo Althöfer (born 1961)[1] is a German mathematician and former professor of operations research at the University of Jena.

His dissertation, Asymptotic Properties of Certain Competition Systems in Artificial Intelligence and Ecology, was supervised by Rudolf Ahlswede.

[3] 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.