Morris: RIP Martin Gardner: 1914 – 2010
Martin Gardner died this week.
One of his books is on my coffee table. This is not a coincidence, there is always one of his books on my coffee table.
Many of my puzzles have come from these books.
I know him as the greatest collator and populiser of math puzzles, but of course his talents went far beyond this.
Rather than try to do my own second-rate obituary I will just point you at some links.
Scientific American, for whom he wrote for 25 years. http://www.scientificamerican.com/report.cfm?id=Martin%20Gardner,%201914-2010
Make your own Martin Gardner Flexagons here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DETMhTC0H0.
The Daily Telegraph on his deconstruction of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/7765184/Martin-Gardner.html
He wrote over 70 books. Nothing I can say can begin to encompass his long and amazing life. He is someone you need to discover for yourself.
He is already missed.
The Math Factor in iTunes
RSS feed
Comments RSS
mathbun.com
strauss said,
May 26, 2010 at 3:00 am
What can I say?
Like so many, Gardner was a tremendous influence in my life. I was lucky enough to learn of his column and books by the time I was about twelve or thirteen– I remember scouring garage sales for copies of Scientific American, just for the Mathematical Games column.
Most listeners/readers of the Math Factor won’t know, but in fact my official mathematical research career owes much to Gardner too. I’ve done quite a bit of work on ‘aperiodic tiles’, tiles that can form a tiling of the entire plane, but only in a not-quite-exactly-repeating manner. Gardner popularized this topic in his incredibly influential writing on the Penrose tiles, the most famous example of this phenomenon. That’s how I learned of this, and eventually I figured out a general construction, several very simple examples, generalizations to other spaces, etc etc. I’ve always enjoyed that my mathematics research stems from recreational math! (Yet, amazingly, has ties to some of the deepest threads in mathematical logic, the theory of computation)
The Math Factor itself, of course, is in the tradition Gardner established. It’s impossible not to be moved by his enthusiasm, the breadth of the topics he touched, the sparkling wit and crystalline insight, his sheer productivity and the amazing number of people he touched so deeply.
In a few weeks, I hope to be posting a lengthy interview with a friend of mine who knows him well… stay tuned.
Stephen Morris said,
May 27, 2010 at 2:45 pm
You may like this documentary about him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiAU3IWQAuE&feature=related