Coxeter on Haekel

“As to Haekel, I wouldn’t trust him round the corner, and I have the gravest doubts whether the pentagonal dodecahedron and various other specimens existed outside his fertile fancy. I believe I may safely say that no type-specimens exist of these in the British Museum, or anywhere else. Haekel was an artist, a pattern-designer, a skilled draughtsman. He had a minute salary from a small University. The Challenger paid him eight guineas a plate for as many plates as he cared to draw and he kept on drawing them and lived on the proceeds (so to say) till the end of his life. He represents a thoroughly bad period in Natural Science.”

In a review of Symmetry by H Weyl in American Matheatical Monthly 60 (1953), 136-139.

H S M Coxeter (Toronto, Ont.)

This page is maintained by Peter M Lee

Revised 12 December 2007