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The first time I ever met Robert Reid I was in Village Games in Camden Lock Market, London.  I listened to his conversation with proprietor Ray Bathke.  Robert immediately struck me as a unique, interesting and truly gentle man.  Ray introduced us and we spoke for a while before Robert left. Ray then filled me in on Robert’s background as one of the great unknown recreational mathematicians of our age.  He has lived for most of his life in Peru, only recently coming back to London.

A year or two later my friend Fred told me over a pint or few that he had met a really interesting man at Kevin Holmes’s puzzle stall in Covent Garden. I quickly realised that it had been Robert. Fred maintained contact with Robert, and one Saturday in August 2001, the three of us met up in a wine bar in Covent Garden, for an afternoon of puzzles and tessellations, which finished well into the evening at a Spanish restaurant in South London.  That day, looking through an unbelievable collection of Robert’s lifelong work inspired me to design some tessellating shapes of my own. I don’t often blow my own trumpet, but on seeing these tessellations a few weeks later, he said, “I am in awe of this man.”  (In Antwerp in August 2002 Robert made the addendum to this statement, “I didn’t say whether I thought you were awful or awesome.” Thanks for that, Robert!

Subsequently Robert and I have met many, many times and he never fails to astonish me with his ingenuity, wit and his life story in general. He is probably (at least in my opinion) the most revered and illustrious former pupil of Arnold House School, London, with a well-deserved world-wide following in recreational mathematics, 3D dissections, tessellations and number theory, and was later educated at The King's School, Canterbury.  He has travelled in Europe and the United States, expanding the horizons of fellow mathematicians, often many years his junior.  He has contributed articles to Martin Gardener, formerly of Scientific American magazine for almost 40 years. He has acquired many friends over the years, all intrigued by this gastronome, wit, raconteur and bon viveur.

I must document the story he told me about when he danced with ‘a beautiful vedette’ at the Moulin Rouge in Paris….

Some of Robert’s work is discussed in Greg Frederickson’s ‘Dissections, Plane and Fancy’.  See my books page.

Fred and I joined Robert Reid for the afternoon of Robert's 76th birthday, at which I presented him with a set of my Seven Deadly Sins puzzle.

In August 2002 Robert gave me access to his entire portfolio of tessellations, for which I am truly grateful. This portfolio consists mainly of A3 pages of highly intricate tessellating designs, drawn by Robert over the last twenty years and hand-coloured by a wide cross-section of people who Robert met in Peru. Many people enjoyed the originals when he displayed them in Antwerp in August 2002. The whole range of society is covered including children, adults, teachers, farmers and even a couple of drug addicts. Robert is concerned that his designs might be misappropriated and used commercially without his permission. As he puts it, “I don’t want to see them on T-shirts.” Personally I’d love to design something that was beautiful enough to be used commercially, but in order to respect his wishes I am only displaying low resolution thumbnails of his work. Anyone interested in producing a book of Robert’s designs can approach him via me. Contact me here.

Robert has also designed a set of 10 three-piece dissections of a cube, where each cube is split into three identical pieces. These photographs are of the cardboard models that he made several years ago. Each picture shows the three pieces, positioned at different angles to give a clear idea of each.  Click here, to see the full set, but before you do so, try to think how you would cut a cube block of, say, hard cheese into three identical pieces which assemble to a cube.  There are probably very few who can think of more than one (very obvious) way. Robert found ten.

This picture (click to expand) shows what, at first glance, appears to be a very large and intricate maze. It covers an area of about 3x4 feet. Actually it is a tessellation made from many replications of the red shape!

Here is a solid, designed by Robert, with the goal of producing the most irregular 3D object which will pack infinite space without any gaps. This picture doesn’t do it justice, being a photograph of a photograph of the object.  I feel privileged to have handled it!

Finally, at least for now, this picture (click to expand) shows ‘Le Coq’ a paper sculpture formed by cleverly combining several identical intricate stellated polyhedra designed by Robert.

I will forward to Robert all correspondence I receive on his work.

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