N.G. (Dick) de Bruijn

Statement

Professor N.G. (Dick) de Bruijn (1918–2012) was a Full Professor in Mathematics at Eindhoven University of Technology from 1960 until 1984. His work covers many areas of mathematics. De Bruijn always had shown an interest in the connections between mathematics and the arts, in particular when it comes to beauty, elegance, simplicity, power, creativity, and playfulness. He invited M.C. Escher to exhibit during the 1954 International Congress of Mathematicians in Amsterdam. Also see the article presented about him at Bridges 2025. (Statement written by Tom Verhoeff.)

Artworks

This is a 2025 replica (the original was made from injection molded plastic pieces) of a tiling that hung in Prof. N.G. de Bruijn's home until he passed away in 2012. It is part of an infinite quasi-periodic tiling. De Bruijn studied such tilings in the early 1980s. Each knight-shaped piece actually consists of two parts: a Penrose kite and a Penrose dart (with tabs/outies and blanks/innies to connect them). Thus, there is an equal number of kites and darts. The knights occur in five orientations, each with their own color. The holes have the shape of a kite.

In the early 1970, while playing with Plasticant, a construction kit for children, Prof. N.G. de Bruijn wondered whether it would be possible to construct a trefoil knot with right angles only and dihedral symmetry (order-2 and order-3 rotations). He described his design in a report in 1974. This larger version was constructed later from regular PVC tubing and hung from the ceiling in the Mathematics and Computer Science library until the department moved to another building in 2012.