Ponder Stibbons

Ponder Stibbons is a wizard at Unseen University in Ankh Morpork. He is the Head of Inadvisably Applied Magic, Praelector and Reader in Invisible Writings and works in the High Energy Magic building.

It is thought that Ponder began life at Unseen University in a somewhat lazy fashion, but has grown into "the most depressingly keen member of the faculty..." and "...as one of the few wizards at the University with his head screwed on in any fashion, he appears, quite against his will, to be in the front line" says a reliable source.

Stibbons' most succesful creation is Hex, a magical calculating device composed of glass tubes full of ants, and other assorted complex systems, such as mice. Hex was initially only capable of simple arithmetic; however as development continued, and more complex additions were made to Hex, it grew the semi-sapience of a child, the ability to add and redesign itself, and the ability to do complex spells much, much more rapidly than a team of wizards could.

Stibbons has also created a device for splitting the thaum, previously believed to be the smallest unit of magical particles.