Jerry Slocum

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This article is about the author. For the college basketball coach, see Jerry Slocum (basketball coach).
Jerry Slocum

Known for Puzzle collector, author

Jerry Slocum is a historian, collector, and author specializing on the field of mechanical puzzles. Prior to retiring and dedicating his life to puzzles, he worked as an engineer at Hughes Aircraft. His personal puzzle collection, numbering over 40,000 mechanical puzzles and 4,500 books, is believed to be the world's largest.

Slocum's first book, Puzzles Old and New, published in 1986, was the first comprehensive book to include all types of mechanical puzzles with hundreds of color illustrations of antique puzzles. In the introduction Martin Gardner predicted that the book would "remain a classic for decades."

In 1993, Slocum founded the Slocum Puzzle Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public on puzzles, through puzzle exhibitions, publications, communications, and collecting.

Slocum also founded the International Puzzle Party in 1978, an event dedicated to discussing, showing, and trading, mechanical puzzles. The first eight International Puzzle Parties were held in Slocum's Beverly Hills living room, and then evolved into an annual by-invitation-only event rotating between North America, Europe, and Asia.

Slocum has appeared on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, Martha Stewart Living and eight other nationwide TV shows.

Slocum has authored or co-authored more than 12 books on the topic of puzzles, including the award-winning Puzzles Old and New published in 1986 and the best-selling The Puzzle Arcade published by Klutz books in 1996.

In 2006, Slocum donated over 30,000 puzzles to the Lilly Library at Indiana University, marking the first time a major collection of puzzles was made available in an academic setting. [1]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Wertheim, Margaret. "Celebrating Puzzles, in 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 Moves (or So)", New York Times, July 25, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-10-23. 
  • Appearance on Martha Stewart Living
  • Puzzles Old and New, by Jerry Slocum & Jack Botermans, 1986.
  • "The Tangram Book", by Jerry Slocum, Dieter Gebhardt, Jack Botermans, Monica Ma, Xiaohe Ma 2003 ISBN 1-4027-0413-5 Sterling Publishing Company (Comprehensive, illustrated history, 1,756 problem figures) beautiful photos of historic Tangrams from Asia, Europe and America
  • "The 15 Puzzle", by Jerry Slocum & Dic Sonneveld, 2006 ISBN 1-890980-15-3 Slocum Puzzle Foundation.

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Slocum, Jerry
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Puzzle collector, author
DATE OF BIRTH missing
PLACE OF BIRTH missing
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH