Dutch Schweggman... Angle Trisector?

 

...trisected an angle using only compass and straight edge?

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I was hoping this will just click for somebody... regarding the picture above...

At a breakfast years ago in my parents old home, a breakfast I did not attend, my father (a retired Engineer who once worked with Stanton Friedman at AeroetJet General testing atomic engines) sat with Dutch Schweggman, my *grandfather* (widowed grandmother's second husband and an award-winning math whiz), when Dutch abruptly said, "I think I can prove the (BLANK) theorem."

"Nonsense," my Father said, a bona fide whiz and aeronautical architect in his own right... "that's not possible."

Dutch constructed the picture provided with a straight-edge and compass. At its completion my Dad was reported to have said, "Well, I'll be damned Dutch... I think you did it."

There was some excitement, many "I'll be damned" exhortations. End of story.

My Mother, now deceased, who did attend, saved the paper above (also at http://www.alienview.net/schwegg.jpg): the bones of the tale.

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One lady writes:

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"Every time I awoke during the night this diagram was in my mind. I may be wrong but I think he may have trisected an angle using only compass and straight edge. This is supposed to be impossible—at least no one had ever succeeded. 

If indeed this is what the diagram is about, it would still have to meet an accepted geometric proof. I'm hooked. I want to play with it for a while and figure out the relationships if I can. I think "H" might be the center of the concentric circles."

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Does anyone have any ideas?

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• lehmberg2002@gmail.com
• http://www.alienview.net/