The eccentric engineer: Art: Mathematical arty adventures in the division of the plane: Known as the mathematicians' artist, Maurits Escher is perhaps best known for his etchings

MAURITS ESCHER, known as 'Mauk' to his friends, grew up in an engineering family in the Netherlands. His father George was a well-respected civil engineer who had travelled to Japan to oversee the restoration of the Yodo river and the building of the Mikuni harbour. His mother was the daughter of a government minister who had fulfilled George's eccentric requirements for marriage – fulfilling the equation v = 1/2m + 10, where v was the age of the woman, and m the age of the husband.