Charles Howard Hinton (1853-1907) was a British mathematician and writer of science fiction works that he called "scientific romances." The inventor of the word "tesseract", he is best known for his work on methods of visualising the geometry of higher dimensions. He also had a strong interest in theosophy.

Hinton was convicted of bigamy for marrying both Mary Everest Boole (daughter of George Boole, the founder of mathematical logic) and Maud Wheldon. He served a single day in prison sentence, then moved with Mary Everest Boole and their children, first to Japan (1886) and later to Princeton University (1893).

In 1897, he designed a gunpowder-powered baseball pitcher for the Princeton baseball team's batting practice. Reportedly, the machine was more powerful than accurate, and caused several injuries. [1]

In an 1880 article entitled "What is the Fourth Dimension?", Hinton proposes that the fourth dimension is "time." This is presumably one of the earliest expressions of this idea, later embraced by Einstein's theory of relativity.

Hinton's early "scientific romances", including "A Plane World" (1884) reportedly inspired Edwin Abbott Abbott's Flatland. Abbott's work, in turn, inspired Hinton's "An Episode on Flatland: Or How a Plain Folk Discovered the Third Dimension" (1907). From 1880 to 1886, Hinton taught at the Uppingham School in Uppingham, Leicestershire, where Howard Candler , a friend of Abbott's also taught. [2]

Towards the end of his life, Hinton worked for the United States Patent Office.

Works

The following books by Hinton are currently (as of 2004) in print:

• Scientific romances: first and second series, with an introduction by James Webb (ISBN 0405079540)
• The fourth dimension (ISBN 0405079532)