Loeb, Arthur L. (Arthur Lee)

Arthur Lee Loeb was born in Amsterdam, Holland in 1923. He did undergraduate work at the University of Pennsylvania and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University where he would later teach. Early work on the design of the core memory for the Whirlwind computer lead to a lifelong interest in spatial patterns and visual mathematics. He also worked as a research chemist for Kennecott Copper Co. and died in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2002.

From the description of Papers of Arthur L. Loeb, (bulk 1966-1972) (Chemical Heritage Foundation). WorldCat record id: 71147558

Loeb was an internationally renowned leader in the field of design science. Throughout his career, he successfully combined the worlds of science and art, devising a language of spatial patterns that he described as "Visual Mathematics." He arrived in America in 1940 after fleeing his native Holland on the first day of the Nazi occupation. He was admitted to the University of Pennsylvania at the age of 20 and went on to earn his Ph.D. in chemical physics from Harvard in 1949. His scientific career began while working on the Whirlwind computer project, in which scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) struggled to develop "core memory" for the next generation of computers. It was at M.I.T. that Loeb began to articulate a language of spatial patterns that became the central focus of his career, leading to lifelong collaborations with such innovators as R. Buckminster Fuller and M.C. Escher. [From the Harvard Gazette].

From the description of Arthur Lee Loeb papers, undated. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 754864443