Arthur Lee Loeb (13 July 1923, Amsterdam – 19 July 2002, Cambridge, Massachusetts) was a Dutch scientist and crystallographer. He arrived to the U.S. during World War II, completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania in 1944, and his Ph.D. in Chemical Physics at Harvard University in 1949. Loeb taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early part of his career. His life's work involved the articulation of a language of spatial patterns, which he refined while working as a research scientist at Kennecott Copper Co. research laboratory in Lexington, MA from 1962 to 1973. He later taught at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, where he was senior lecturer in the Visual and Environmental Studies Department. His language, which he described as "Visual Mathematics" and "Design Science," led to lifelong collaboration with innovators such as

R. Buckminster Fuller Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...

and M.C. Escher. Loeb was a founder and first Vice-President of the International Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Symmetry (ISIS-Symmetry). He was later, until 2001, the Chairman of the Advisory Board. Loeb and his wife, Charlotte Aarts Loeb (1921–2006) lived for many years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and maintained a music room where they played Renaissance music, often with period instruments, and practiced Renaissance dance. This reflected Loeb's love for Renaissance music and its intricate patterns of dance. The Rhode Island School of Design carries a collection on design science in his name. He is buried at

Mount Auburn Cemetery Mount Auburn Cemetery is the first rural cemetery, rural, or garden, cemetery in the United States, located on the line between Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts, Watertown in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Middl ...

in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his grave contains the inscription "Beloved teacher, scientist & musician."

Selected books

*''Space Structures: Their Harmony and Counterpoint'', Addison-Wesley, 1976,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Loeb, Arthur Lee 1923 births 2002 deaths 20th-century Dutch physicists Crystallographers University of Pennsylvania alumni Harvard University alumni Harvard University faculty Scientists from Amsterdam Dutch emigrants to the United States