Bob Hearn

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Robert Aubrey Hearn is an American ultramarathon runner, computer scientist, and recreational mathematician.

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Computer science and recreational mathematics

Hearn is originally from Oklahoma; [1] as a student at Memorial High School (Tulsa, Oklahoma) in the early 1980s, he was passionate about solving the Rubik's Cube. [2] He is a 1987 alumnus of Rice University; [1] [3] at Rice, he was a member of the Marching Owl Band [4] and of Rice's third-place-winning team in the 1986 International Collegiate Programming Contest. [5]

Hearn was hired from Rice by StyleWare, a developer of Apple II software. With another Rice student and ICPC contestant, Jeff Erickson, he wrote TopDraw, a black and white bitmap drawing program that was purchased by Beagle Bros and became BeagleDraw. StyleWare was purchased by Claris, [6] and with Scott Holdaway, Hearn became one of the two original developers of ClarisWorks, an a popular integrated office suite for Apple Macintosh computers. [3] [4] [6] He, Holdaway, and several other ClarisWorks developers founded Gobe Software in 1997. [4]

He later became a doctoral student of Erik Demaine at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, co-advised by Gerald Jay Sussman. [7] His 2006 dissertation invented nondeterministic constraint logic and used it to characterize the computational complexity of many games, puzzles, and reconfiguration problems. He and Demaine turned his dissertation into the 2009 book Games, Puzzles, and Computation . [8]

He is a member of the board of directors for Gathering 4 Gardner. [9]

Running

Hearn first began competing in ultra-marathons when he was 42, [10] and has set many US records for his age classes. [10] [11] He was honored in 2022 by a Tennessee House of Representatives Bill that named him "King of the Road" for winning the 2021 Last Annual Vol State Road Race, a 500 km (310 mi) race, of which 468 km (291 mi) passed through Tennessee. [12] In 2023, USA Track & Field named him as their male masters ultrarunner of the year. [13]

Personal life

Hearn is married to Elizabeth H. Hearn, an independent geophysicist, former professor at the University of British Columbia, and program director at the National Science Foundation. [14]

Related Research Articles

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The Rubik's Cube is a 3D combination puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube, the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Pentangle Puzzles in the UK in 1978, and then by Ideal Toy Corp in 1980 via businessman Tibor Laczi and Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer. The cube was released internationally in 1980 and became one of the most recognized icons in popular culture. It won the 1980 German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle. As of January 2024, around 500 million cubes had been sold worldwide, making it the world's bestselling puzzle game and bestselling toy. The Rubik's Cube was inducted into the US National Toy Hall of Fame in 2014.

<i>Zork</i> 1977 video game

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References

  1. 1 2 LaMothe, Spareribs (5 October 2015), "Bob Hearn, American Pheidippides", The Dallas Morning News, retrieved 2024-08-24
  2. ↑ Clark, Richard (17 August 2012), From The KOTV Vault: Remembering The Rubik's Cube Circa 1981, KOTV, retrieved 2024-08-25
  3. 1 2 Chatfield, Carlyn (10 January 2019), "Speaker Bio: Bob Hearn", 35th Anniversary of the CS Department at Rice, retrieved 2024-08-24
  4. 1 2 3 Bortman, Henry, "Developer interviews: Scott Holdaway, Gobe Software", BeOS Bible, retrieved 2024-08-25
  5. ↑ "The Early Years", International Collegiate Programming Contest, retrieved 2024-08-25
  6. 1 2 Hearn, Bob (2003), A Brief History of ClarisWorks, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  7. ↑ Bob Hearn at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  8. ↑ Reviews of Games, Puzzles, and Computation:
  9. ↑ "Board of directors", Gathering 4 Gardner, retrieved 2024-08-25
  10. 1 2 Howard, Liza (5 February 2020), "Age-Old Runners: Bob Hearn", I Run Far
  11. ↑ Records set by Hearn, USA Track & Field, retrieved 2024-08-25
  12. ↑ "Bill tracking in Tennessee: HJR 670", Fast Democracy, retrieved 2024-08-25; see also House Joint Resolution 670 (PDF), Tennessee House of Representatives, retrieved 2024-08-25
  13. ↑ Mock, Justin (18 December 2023), "This Week In Running", I Run Far, retrieved 2024-08-25; Hobbs, Nancy (4 December 2023), 2023 USATF Mountain Ultra Trail Runners of the Year Announced, American Trail Running Association, retrieved 2024-08-25
  14. ↑ EAR Announces Staff Changes, National Science Foundation, Fall 2021, retrieved 2024-08-25
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