Magnus Wenninger

Father Magnus J. Wenninger OSB (born October 31, 1919 in Park Falls, Wisconsin) is a mathematician who works on constructing polyhedron models, and wrote the first book on their construction.

Born to German immigrants in Park Falls, Wisconsin, Joseph Wenninger always knew he was going to be a priest. From an early age, it was understood that his brother Heinie would take after their father and become a baker, and that Joe, as he was then known, would go into the priesthood.

When Wenninger was thirteen, after graduating from the parochial school in Park Falls, Wisconsin, his parents saw an advertisement in the German newspaper Der Wanderer that would help to shape the rest of his life. The ad was for a preparatory school in Collegeville, Minnesota, associated with the Benedictine St. John’s University.

While admitting to feeling homesick at first, Wenninger quickly made friends and, after a year, knew that this was where he needed to be. He was a student in a section of the prep school that functioned as a “minor seminary” – later moving on into St. John’s where he studied philosophy and theology, which led into the priesthood.

When Fr. Wenninger became a Benedictine monk, he took on his monastic name Magnus, meaning “Great”. At the start of his career, Wenninger did not set out on a path one might expect would lead to his becoming the great polyhedronist that he is known as today. Rather, a few chance happenings and seemingly minor decisions shaped a course for Wenninger that led to his groundbreaking studies.

Shortly after becoming a priest, Wenninger’s Abbot informed him that their order was starting up a school in the Bahamas. It was decided that Wenninger would be assigned to teach at that school. In order to do this, it was necessary that he get a master's degree. Wenninger was sent to the University of Ottawa, in Canada, to study educational psychology. There he studied symbolic logic under Thomas Greenwood of the philosophy department. His thesis title was “The Concept of Number According to Roger Bacon and Albert the Great”.

After completing his degree, Wenninger went to the school in the Bahamas, where he was asked by the headmaster to choose between teaching English or math. Wenninger chose math, since it seemed to be more in line with the topic of his MA thesis. However, not having taken many math courses in college, Wenninger admits to being able to teach by staying a few pages ahead of the students. He taught Algebra, Euclidean Geometry, Trigonometry and Analytic Geometry.

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