Harm Geert Muller

Harm Geert Muller(HGM), a Dutch physicist and since 1976 computer chess programmer. He wrote a blitz program for the PDP-11 and programs for the 6800 and 6502 8-bit µ-Processors, released under the name Usurpator, which competed in several Dutch Computer Chess Championships. In 1986 HGM came up with a matchbox computer with a 65SC816 CPU for the purpose of running Usurpator, competing three times until 1990.

References

Harm Geert Muller is a Dutch physicist specializing in attosecond optics. He collaborated closely with Pierre Agostini on the experimental demonstration of the first train of attosecond pulses in 2001, a breakthrough that formed one of the cornerstones of the research awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics.

This collaboration involved teams from the FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics (AMOLF) in Amsterdam, led by Muller, and the Centre d’Études de Saclay in France.

The RABBIT technique (Reconstruction of Attosecond Beating By Interference of Two-photon Transitions), co-developed by Muller at AMOLF, was fundamental to the work that earned Agostini the Nobel Prize.

Muller served as a group leader at AMOLF, where he contributed to several highly cited publications, including the 2001 Science paper that is listed among the institute’s most impactful articles between 1988 and 2010.

In addition, Muller has been invited as the main speaker at events dedicated to the attosecond Nobel Prize, underscoring his continuing expertise in the field.

Comeback

After 15 years "out of business", HGM is back with his minimalist chess engine Micro-Max, the chess variants engine Fairy-Max, the closed source programs Joker and Spartacus, the Chinese Chess engine HaQiKi D, and the Shogi engine Shokidoki. HGM is involved in extending the Chess Engine Communication Protocol specification to Version 2, also addressing various chess and chess like game variants, and further covering Checkers, Go, Amazons, and Reversi (Othello). The didactic open source engine KingSlayer published in fall 2015 is intended to be an inspiration for beginning chess programmers. His open source engine CrazyWa plays Shogi and Chess variants with piece drops with boards up to 11x11, with up to 16 droppable piece types, and 15 promoted piece types.

Shokidoki

HGM's Shogi engine Shokidoki won silver in 5*5 Shogi at the 15th Computer Olympiad, gold at the 17th Computer Olympiad, gold in Shogi and Mini-Shogi at the 18th Computer Olympiad 2015, and also won the 2015 UEC Cup. (9th UEC Mini-Shogi Tournament).