Harry Lindgren (25 June 1912 – 1 July 1992) was a British-Australian engineer, linguist and amateur mathematician.

Early life

Lindgren was born in

Newcastle-upon-Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is als ...

in England. In 1935 he emigrated to join his family in

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

, Australia. He received a BSc degree from the

University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany, Western Australia, Albany an ...

and later became a Commonwealth Patent Officer. He married Eve Spokone, whom he had met at university, on 30 May 1941, the couple went on to have one daughter. Lindgren played violin in the

Canberra Symphony Orchestra Canberra Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is the professional orchestra of the Australian Capital Territory based in Canberra, the national capital of Australia. History Officially formed on 14 March 1950 and registered as an amateur ensemble, the C ...

for a number of years.

Mathematics

Lindgren published articles in several mathematical journals which culminated in his famous book 'Geometric Dissections' (Van Nostrand 1964), which explores techniques for devising and solving

dissection puzzle A dissection puzzle, also called a transformation puzzle or ''Richter Puzzle'', is a tiling puzzle where a set of pieces can be assembled in different ways to produce two or more distinct geometric shapes. The creation of new dissection puzzles ...

s. When published, his work was the only complete treatment of this subject in any language. This remained true for a third of a century.

Linguistics and later life

In 1969 Lindgren published ''Spelling Reform: A New Approach'' (Alpha Books, 104 Bathurst St, Sydney 2000, Australia). This work outlines a proposal for introducing phoneme-by-phoneme adjustment of English spelling, in order that spellings may more accurately represent the sounds of the speech they denote. The book features several cartoons illustrating the absurdities of existing spellings. He spent five years writing the book. On 1 September 1971 Lindgren launched the Spelling Action Society (headquartered in Narrabundah, a suburb of

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

) to promote his suggested reforms. He chose the name to share its initials with Scandinavia's SAS airline to acknowledge his Nordic ancestry. He published the newsletter Spelling Action under the society to promote use of his Spelling Reform step One (SR1). As Lindgren's health deteriorated in later life the newsletter was taken over by Gary Jimmieson (and later Doug Everingham). He died of a

pulmonary embolism Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a blockage of an pulmonary artery, artery in the lungs by a substance that has moved from elsewhere in the body through the bloodstream (embolism). Symptoms of a PE may include dyspnea, shortness of breath, chest pain p ...

in Jindalee Nursing Home, Canberra.

References

1912 births 1992 deaths Amateur mathematicians Linguists from Australia English-language spelling reform advocates People from Newcastle upon Tyne British emigrants to Australia University of Western Australia alumni 20th-century Australian mathematicians 20th-century linguists {{Mathematician-stub