Genrikh Altshuller
Soviet inventor and writer (1926–1998)
Genrikh Saulovich Altshuller (Russian: Ге́нрих Сау́лович Альтшу́ллер, pronounced [ˈɡʲɛnrʲɪx sɐˈuləvʲɪtɕ əlʲtʂulʲɪr]; 15 October 1926 – 24 September 1998) was a Soviet engineer, inventor, and writer. He is most notable for creating the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, better known by its Russian acronym TRIZ. He founded the Azerbaijan Public Institute for Inventive Creation and was the first president of the TRIZ Association. He also wrote science fiction under the pen name Genrikh Altov.
Early life
Altshuller was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan (formerly the USSR) to a family of journalists of Jewish background. He moved with his family to Baku, Azerbaijan, where he spent most of his life. After graduating from high school he was admitted to the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute. Altshuller enlisted in the Army in 1944 and was trained as a fighter pilot but did not see action.
He joined the Soviet Navy at the age of twenty and attracted attention for his ability to fix engines, getting assigned to the Commission of Innovation of the Caspian Navy Flotilla.
Working as a clerk in a patent office, Altshuller embarked on finding some generic rules that would explain the creation of new, inventive, patentable ideas. He eventually created the Teoriya Resheniya Izobreatatelskikh Zadach (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving or TRIZ)).
The public source identifies “Genrikh Altshuller” as soviet inventor and writer (1926–1998). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Genrikh, Altshuller and Soviet.
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This entry incorporates text from “Genrikh Altshuller” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.