US-American journalist and mystery writer. He was born on April 9, 1875 in Pike County, Georgia, United States, and died on April 15, 1912, in the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Best known for his detective stories about Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, also known as The Thinking Machine. The Thinking Machine first appeared in 1905, in The Problem of Cell 13.