Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen

Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph.D., LL.D., F.R.S., M.D., M.D.S. is a fictional character in a series of detective short stories and two novels by Jacques Futrelle. Some of the short stories were originally published in "The Saturday Evening Post" and the "Boston American".
Plot.
In the stories, Professor Van Dusen solves a variety of different mysteries with his friend and companion, Hutchinson Hatch, reporter of a fictional newspaper called "The Daily New Yorker". The professor is known as "The Thinking Machine", solving problems by the remorseless application of logic. This nickname was given to him after his winning of a match against the fictional chess champion of the day, Tschaikowsky, in a demonstration to show the power of applying pure logic. He was able to win against the reigning champion having only been taught the game the morning of the match. Many of his titles are actually honorary degrees awarded to him serving only to amuse the universities and scientific institutions that crown him with those titles. His catchphrases include, "Two and two always equal four," "Nothing is impossible" and "All things that start must go somewhere." Futrelle died at age 37 on April 15, 1912, on the RMS "Titanic". He refused to board a lifeboat, insisting that his wife board instead.
Short stories.
"The Case of the Scientific Murderer". Popular Magazine, 1 September 1912. Revised as "The Case of the Mysterious Weapon". Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, October 1950
Details of first publication are not yet known for the following stories.
Short stories not featuring The Thinking Machine
Short stories sometimes misattributed to Jacques Futrelle
In other media.
Television.
The story "The Problem of Cell 13" was broadcast as "The Problem of Cell Block 13" on the American TV series Kraft Mystery Theater in 1962, with actor Claude Dauphin as the van Dusen character (but named Lowell in the episode). The program also featured Philip Pine and Vic Perrin.
The professor appeared in two episodes of the 1970s Thames Television series "The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes". Douglas Wilmer portrayed Van Dusen in "Cell 13" and "The Superfluous Finger." The 1981 Australian Broadcasting Commission series "Detective" dramatised "The Brown Coat" with John Hannan as Dusen.
Radio.
Between 1978 and 1999 the German radio station RIAS produced and broadcast 79 radio plays based on the character. A few of them were based on original stories by Futrelle, but most of the scripts were new creations by German author Michael Koser. The role of Hutchinson Hatch is a lot more prominent in the radio plays than it was in the original; Hatch was made into the fictional narrator in the radio version.
In 2011, the BBC Radio 4 series "The Rivals" featured Paul Rhys as Professor Van Dusen in Chris Harrald's adaptation of "The Problem of Cell 13", which was directed by Sasha Yevtushenko. He returned for the first episode of the second series in 2013, in Chris Harrald's adaptation of "The Problem of the Superfluous Finger", produced by Liz Webb. In the fourth episode of the fourth series in 2016, "The Mystery of the Scarlet Thread", Van Dusen was played by Tony Gardner.
Comics.
In 2013, the character appeared in Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's graphic novel '; the character aids explorer Janni Nemo in 1925 when she encounters H. P. Lovecraft's Elder Gods in Antarctica. He returns in ', the final part of the series; set in 2010, he has been resurrected as a sentient A.I., becoming a literal 'thinking machine.'