Paul Schatz

Paul Schatz (22 December 1898, Konstanz – 7 March 1979) was a German-born sculptor, inventor and mathematician who patented the oloid and discovered the inversions of the platonic solids, including the "invertible cube", which is often sold as an eponymous puzzle, the Schatz cube. From 1927 to his death he lived in Switzerland.

Origins and methodology

Paul Schatz's investigations grew out of what he called "serious play", a research motto he summarised in German as ("search for what you might find unasked"). This open-ended approach demanded treating familiar forms as if they were unknown, allowing novel patterns to emerge. At that time, Schatz was a trained wood sculptor with university-level mathematical education, and he combined these skills by crafting hand-built paper and wood models to investigate spatial relationships and transformations.