Uwe Mèffert

Uwe Mèffert (28 November 1939 Mèffert constructed balsa wood polyhedra and found the gentle stroking of the apexes of the various shapes had a gentle massaging and stimulating influence and instilled a sense of peace, relaxation, and calm. After playing around with this idea for a while, he cut the solids into symmetric slices and attached them with rubber bands to a center ball.

He did not think anyone else would be interested in the idea, and put the shapes away and forgot about them until Ernő Rubik's Cube became a worldwide sensation in the early 1980s. Mèffert's friends persuaded him to travel to Hong Kong in early 1981, where he met Dennis Ting Hok-shou of the Hong Kong Toys Association. Similarly he produced the first Skewb (invented by Tony Durham). Since that time, Mèffert and his associates have created more than 350 rotating mechanical puzzles and modifications. and Oskar van Deventer, including the Gear Cube. More recently he licensed and re-released designs from other manufacturers, such as Dogic.

Mèffert also created his own version of sudoku. In addition to the standard sudoku rules, the two major diagonals must also contain the numerals from 1 to 9. Additionally, a Chinese magic square is hidden somewhere in the solution. He named this puzzle Kokonotsu, Japanese for nine.

Biography

Mèffert was born in Wernigerode in the Harz Mountains of Germany on 28 November 1939. Mèffert was the son of Otto Oscar Wilhelm Rudolph Mèffert and Emmy Johanna Frieda Von-Vorkauf.