The Ulf Ulmsten Lecture presented at the opening ceremonies of the 30th Annual Congress of the International Urogynecologic Association—August 10, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark

Excerpt

Through my friendship with Gunnar Lose, I have learned the story of a Danish genius named Piet Hein, who died in 1996 at the age of 91. Piet was a mathematician, physicist, poet, author, and designer. When the Vietnam peace talks began in Paris, negotiators initially could not agree how to physically arrange themselves to maximize productivity and minimize conflict. Finally, they chose a table designed by Piet Hein, constructed in the shape of a super-ellipse, which had neither head nor tail. In this setting, everyone had a position of equality. Piet Hein (Fig. 1) also wrote a number of aphorisms or poems, called grooks, which he first published under a pseudonym in 1940 when the Nazis occupied Denmark. Years later, he published collections of his grooks, several of which I will use in this talk to emphasize important points.

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