Paul Hoffman (born March 30, 1956) is the president and CEO of the

Liberty Science Center Liberty Science Center is an interactive science museum and learning center located in Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States. At its opening it was the largest such planetarium in the Western Hemisphere and the world's ...

Jersey City Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. He is also a prominent author, science educator, food entrepreneur
Moth storyteller
and host of the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

television series '' Great Minds of Science.''

Career

He was president and editor in chief of ''

Discover Discover may refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''Discover'' (album), a Cactus Jack album * ''Discover'' (magazine), an American science magazine Businesses and brands * DISCover, the ''Digital Interactive Systems Corporation'' * Di ...

'', in a ten-year tenure with that magazine, and served as president and publisher of ''

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various time ...

'' before returning full-time to writing and consulting work. He lives in Brooklyn and

Woodstock, New York Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States, in the northern part of the county, northwest of Kingston, NY. It lies within the borders of the Catskill Park. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 in 2000 ...

. Author of at least ten books, he has appeared on ''CBS This Morning'' and ''The NewsHour with

Jim Lehrer James Charles Lehrer (; May 19, 1934 – January 23, 2020) was an American journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and playwright. Lehrer was the executive editor and a news anchor for the ''PBS NewsHour'' on PBS and was known for his role as a deb ...

'' as a correspondent. Hoffman is also a paradoxologist using the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

Dr. Crypton. He designed the puzzle in the 1984 book '' Treasure: In Search of the Golden Horse''. He also designed the treasure map in the 1984 film, ''

Romancing the Stone ''Romancing the Stone'' is a 1984 action-adventure romantic comedy film directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Diane Thomas and produced by Michael Douglas, who also starred in the film. The film co-stars Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. The fi ...

'', starring

Michael Douglas Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and film producer. He has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the AF ...

Kathleen Turner Mary Kathleen Turner (born June 19, 1954) is an American actress. She has received various accolades, including two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, and two Tony Awards. Turner became widely k ...

, and

Danny DeVito Daniel Michael DeVito Jr. (born November 17, 1944) is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He gained prominence for his portrayal of the taxi dispatcher Louie De Palma in the television series ''Taxi'' (1978–1983), which won him a Gold ...

. Paul is a

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

player rated around 1900 (or class-A level) who was the last man standing when world champion

Magnus Carlsen Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster who is the reigning five-time World Chess Champion. He is also a three-time World Rapid Chess Champion and five-time World Blitz Chess Champion. Carlsen has h ...

played blindfold

blitz chess Fast chess, also known as Speed chess, is a type of chess in which each player is given less time to consider their moves than normal tournament time controls allow. Fast chess is subdivided, by decreasing time controls, into rapid chess, blitz ...

against three challengers. Hoffman, who holds a B.A. degree

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

from

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 ...

, is the winner of the first

National Magazine Award The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Or ...

for Feature Writing and is a member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

. ''

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

'' magazine once called him "the smartest man in the world," but Hoffman claims the editors must have caught him on a particularly good day. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' called Hoffman
the mayor of strange places
because of his penchant for checking in at out-of-the-way places on

Foursquare Four square is a ball game. Four square may also refer to: Internet and entertainment * Foursquare City Guide, a local search and discovery app * ''4 Square'' (game show), a British game show * ''4 Square'' (TV series), a Canadian children's s ...

. Paul's most celebrated book, ''

The Man Who Loved Only Numbers ''The Man Who Loved Only Numbers'' is a biography of the famous mathematician Paul Erdős written by Paul Hoffman. The book was first published on July 15, 1998, by Hyperion Books as a hardcover edition. A paperback edition appeared in 1999. ...

,'' was featured in clue 104 Down in the Sunday ''Times'' crossword puzzle for 11/15/2015. That book, a biography of the Hungarian mathematician

Paul Erdős Paul Erdős ( hu, Erdős Pál ; 26 March 1913 – 20 September 1996) was a Hungarian mathematician. He was one of the most prolific mathematicians and producers of mathematical conjectures of the 20th century. pursued and proposed problems in ...

, was awarded the Royal Society Science Books Prize. Before joining

in October 2011, Hoffman was the editorial chairman of the video interview website

Big Think Big Think is a multimedia web portal founded in 2007 by Victoria Brown and Peter Hopkins. The website is a collection of interviews, presentations, and round table discussions with experts from a wide range of fields. Victoria Brown is the acting ...

, where he personally interviewed

Dick Cavett Richard Alva Cavett (; born November 19, 1936) is an American television personality and former talk show host. He appeared regularly on nationally broadcast television in the United States for five decades, from the 1960s through the 2000s. In ...

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ...

Annie Duke Anne LaBarr Duke (née Lederer; born September 13, 1965) is an American former professional poker player and author in cognitive-behavioral decision science and decision education. She holds a World Series of Poker (WSOP) gold bracelet from 2004 ...

Arianna Huffington Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington (née Ariadnē-Anna Stasinopoúlou, el, Αριάδνη-Άννα Στασινοπούλου ; born July 15, 1950) is a Greek-American author, syndicated columnist and businesswoman. She is a co-founder of ''Th ...

John Irving John Winslow Irving (born John Wallace Blunt Jr.; March 2, 1942) is an American-Canadian novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of ''The World According to G ...

Penn Jillette Penn Fraser Jillette (born March 5, 1955) is an American magician, actor, musician, inventor, television presenter, and author, best known for his work with fellow magician Teller as half of the team Penn & Teller. The duo has been featured ...

Anatoly Karpov Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov ( rus, links=no, Анато́лий Евге́ньевич Ка́рпов, p=ɐnɐˈtolʲɪj jɪvˈɡʲenʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈkarpəf; born May 23, 1951) is a Russian and former Soviet chess grandmaster, former World Ches ...

Garry Kasparov Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...

and

Ed Koch Edward Irving Koch ( ; December 12, 1924February 1, 2013) was an American politician, lawyer, political commentator, film critic, and television personality. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and was may ...

, among others. Hoffman was the creative director of the Beyond

Rubik's Cube The Rubik's Cube is a Three-dimensional space, 3-D combination puzzle originally invented in 1974 by Hungarians, Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube, the puzzle was licensed by Rubik t ...

exhibition, which appeared at venues around the world starting with LSC in Jersey City, NJ, the

Great Lakes Science Center The Great Lakes Science Center is a museum and educational facility in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Many of the exhibits document the features of the natural environment in the Great Lakes region of the United States. The facility inc ...

in Cleveland, and Telus World of Science in Edmonton, Canada. Exhibition elements included a 35-foot-tall rooftop cube made of lights that people could manipulate with their cellphones, a $2.5 million cube made of diamonds, a giant cube displaying the inner workings of the puzzle, and cube-solving robots.

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

was LSC's creative partner in the creation of the 7,000-square-foot exhibition. These days Hoffman is spearheading the development of SciTech Scity, a 30-acre "City of Tomorrow" innovation campus in Jersey City that aims to launch and grow world-changing science and technology companies and reimagine public school science education.

Partial bibliography

* * * * *

References

External links

Paul Hoffman's bioPaul Hoffman's blogPresenting at Cusp Conference 2009 (video)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoffman, Paul 1956 births Harvard University alumni American male biographers American science writers American magazine editors Living people People from Brooklyn People from Woodstock, New York 21st-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American biographers Journalists from New York City 20th-century American male writers Discover (magazine) people Historians from New York (state) 21st-century American male writers