Ivan Moscovich

Ivan Moscovich is a designer and commercial developer of puzzles, games, toys, and educational aids. He has written many books and is internationally recognized in the toys industry as an innovative inventor .

Biography

Ivan Moscovich was born to Hungarian parents in 1926 in Yugoslavia. His father was an industrial designer who died during World War II.

During the war, he was taken to the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, and others. He was liberated by British troops in 1945^[1] and was sent to Sweden for recuperation before returning home.

After finishing his university studies in mechanical engineering, he emigrated to Israel, where he initially worked as a research scientist involved in the design of teaching materials, educational aids, and educational games.

Author

Moscovich is the author of several books on the subjects of science, mathematics, and art. His Mindbenders series was translated into 12 languages. His 1000 PlayThinks became a bestseller. According to Goodreads, he has published 45 distinct works.^[2]

Artist

Moscovich's kinetic art and other art creations have been shown in major art exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the International Design Centrum in Berlin, and the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. His computer art creations and his patented "Harmonograph" (an analog computer which functions as an art-drawing machine) have been awarded many prizes and medals.

Science Museum

Moscovich's work attracted general interest, which in 1958 resulted in his proposal for the establishment of a novel science museum, the first of its kind in Israel. He became the founder, and later the director, of the Museum of Science and Technology in Tel Aviv. This science museum opened in temporary premises in 1964 and attracted world-wide interest and hundreds of thousands of visitors until it closed in the late 1970s.

The museum was an early forerunner of hands-on science museums; it introduced a great number of original hands-on and interactive exhibits in science, mathematics, and art. Frank Oppenheimer visited the Tel Aviv science museum in 1965 and later used several of Moscovich's designs and exhibits in his revolutionary Exploratorium in San Francisco, which opened in 1969.

Publications

• The Little Book of Big Brain Games. New York: Workman Publishing. 2010. ISBN 9780761161738. 
• The Monty Hall Problem and Other Puzzles. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications. 
• Leonardo's Mirror and Other Puzzles. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications. 

References

External links

• Master of Mysteries (a Popular Science article)