Werner Boy

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R. Bryant's parameterization of Boy's surface from near the top

Werner Boy was a mathematician. He was the discoverer and eponym of Boy's surface — a three dimensional projection of the real projective plane without singularities, the first of its kind. He discovered it in 1901 after his thesis adviser, David Hilbert, asked him to prove that it was not possible to immerse the real projective plane in three dimensional space. Boy was able to sketch several models of the surface, and discovered that it could have 3-fold rotational symmetry, but unable to find a parametric model for the surface. It was not until 1978 that Bernard Morin found the first parameterization, with the aid of computers.

After completing his dissertation, Boy worked as a Gymnasium instructor in Krefeld, Germany. He later returned to his birth town of Barmen (today Wupertal) to teach. He died as a soldier in the first weeks of WWI on 6 September 1914.

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