Roland Sprague

Roland Percival Sprague (11 July 1894, Unterliederbach – 1 August 1967) was a German mathematician, known for the Sprague–Grundy theorem[1] and for being the first mathematician to find a perfect squared square.[2]

Biography

With two mathematicians, Thomas Bond Sprague and Hermann Amandus Schwarz, as grandfathers, Roland Sprague was also a great-grandson of the mathematician Ernst Eduard Kummer and a great-grandson of the musical instrument maker Nathan Mendelssohn (1781–1852).[3]

After graduation (Abitur) in 1912 from the Bismarck-Gymnasium in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Sprague studied from 1912 to 1919 in Berlin and Göttingen with an interruption by military service from 1915 to 1918. In 1921 in Berlin he passed the state test for teaching in mathematics, chemistry, and physics. He was Studienassessor (probationary teacher at a secondary school) from 1922 at the Paulsen-Realgymnasium in Berlin-Steglitz and from 1924 at the Schiller-Gymnasium (temporarily named "Clausewitz-Schule") in Berlin-Charlottenburg, where he became in 1925 Studienrat (teacher at a secondary school).[3][4]

In 1950 Sprague received a PhD under Alexander Dinghas at the Freie Universität Berlin with dissertation Über die eindeutige Bestimmbarkeit der Elemente einer endlichen Menge durch zweifache Einteilung.[5] At the Pädagogische Hochschule Berlin, Sprague was from 1949 Dozent, from 1953 Oberstudienrat (senior teacher at a secondary school), and from 1955 Professor.[3]

Sprague is known for his contributions to recreational mathematics, especially the Sprague–Grundy function and its application to combinatorial games, which Sprague and Patrick Michael Grundy discovered independently in 1935 and 1939 respectively.[6] This result of Sprague's enabled mathematical strategies devised originally by Emanuel Lasker to be completed,[7] and provided a method for calculating winning strategies for generalizations of the game of Nim.

Selected works
  • Über mathematische Kampfspiele, Tôhoku Mathematical Journal, vol. 41 (1935), pp. 438–444 (Online-Version).
  • Über zwei Abarten von Nim, Tôhoku Mathematical Journal, vol. 43 (1937), pp. 451–454 (Online-Version).
  • Unterhaltsame Mathematik : Neue Probleme, überraschende Lösungen, 2nd edition, 1969.

References
  1. "5. Towards a theory for combinatorial games"". American Mathematical Society. Retrieved 2017-06-30.
  2. Stuart Anderson. "R. P. Sprague". squaring.net. Retrieved 2017-06-30. R.P. Sprague published his solution to the problem of squaring the square. Sprague constructed his solution using several copies of various sizes of Z. Moroń's Rectangle I (33x32), Rectangle II (65x47) and a third 12 order simple perfect rectangle and five other elemental squares to create an order 55, compound perfect squared square (CPSS) with side 4205.
  3. Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Mathematischen Gesellschaft: 333. 2001. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. Archivdatenbank der Bibliothek für Bildungsgeschichtliche Forschung: Archivdatenbank der Bibliothek für Bildungsgeschichtliche Forschung: Documents of Roland Sprague
  5. Roland Sprague at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  6. Über mathematische Kampfspiele
  7. Jörg Bewersdorff: Glück, Logik und Bluff: Mathematic im Spiel – Methoden, Ergebnisse und Grenzen, Springer-Spektrum Verlag, 6th edition 2012, ISBN 978-3-8348-1923-9, doi:10.1007/978-3-8348-2319-9, pp. 120-126.
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