Martin Gardner

Martin Gardner
Born	Martin Gardner October 21, 1914 Tulsa, USA
Died	May 22, 2010 (age 95) Norman, Oklahoma
Resting place	Cremated, Location of ashes is unknown
Categories	Books by Martin Gardner

Martin Gardner (1914-2010) was a popular American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing magic (conjuring), pseudoscience, literature (especially Lewis Carroll), philosophy, and religion. He wrote the "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American from 1956 to 1981 and has published over 70 books.

Gardner was often referred to as a "mathemagician".

Biography

Martin Gardner grew up in and around Tulsa, Oklahoma.

He attended college at the University of Chicago and earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy there. He also attended graduate school at the University of Chicago, but he did not earn a master's degree there. He pursued the rest of his education independently through his wide reading and library research.

During World War II, he served for several years in the U.S. Navy as a yeoman. While his primary duty was signaling by means of flags and lights, demanding superb eyesight, he was also secretary to the ship's captain and other officers.

For many decades, Gardner, his wife Charlotte, and their two sons lived in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, where he earned his living as an independent author, publishing books with several different publishers, and also publishing hundreds of magazine articles in various magazines. Either by choice or a happy coincidence, he lived on Euclid Avenue. In 1979, he and his wife semi-retired and moved to Hendersonville, North Carolina where they lived in relative seclusion. He and his wife had a long and happy marriage until her death in 2000.

Gardner popularized recreational mathematics and science and wrote the Encyclopedia of Impromptu Magic.

Admirers of Gardner started meeting in Atlanta, Georgia in 1992, which became a bi-annual event called Gathering for Gardner

Magic Related Books

• 1935 Match-ic
• 1940 12 Tricks with a Borrowed Deck
• 1941 After the Dessert
• 1941 Favorite Mother Goose Rhymes (A forcing book)
• 1942 Cut the Cards
• 1949 Over the Coffee Cups
• 1956 Mathematics, Magic and Mystery Dover; ISBN 0-486-20335-2
• 1975 Mathematical Carnival: A New Round-up of Tantalizers and Puzzles from "Scientific American", Knopf Publishing Group; ISBN 0-394-49406-7
• 1978 Aha! Insight, W.H. Freeman & Company; ISBN 0-7167-1017-X
• 1978 Encyclopedia of Impromptu Magic, first serialized in Hugard's Magic Monthly in the 1950s, (1978)
• 1981 Entertaining Science Experiments With Everyday Objects; Dover; ISBN 0-486-24201-3
• 1982 Aha! Gotcha: Paradoxes to Puzzle and Delight (Tools for Transformation); W.H. Freeman & Company; ISBN 0-7167-1361-6
• 1984 Codes, Ciphers and Secret Writing (Test Your Code Breaking Skills), Dover; ISBN 0-486-24761-9
• 1985 Magic Numbers of Dr Matrix, Prometheus Books; ISBN 0-87975-282-3
• 1986 Entertaining Mathematical Puzzles, Dover; ISBN 0-486-25211-6
• 1993 Martin Gardner Presents
• 1994 My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles, Dover; ISBN 0-486-28152-3
• 1995 Classic Brainteasers, Sterling Publishing; ISBN 0-8069-1261-8
• 1998 Martin Gardner's Table Magic, Dover; ISBN 0-486-40403-X
• 1998 Mathematical Recreations: A Collection in Honor of Martin Gardner, Dover; ISBN 0486400891 - This book, edited by David A. Klamer, was the tribute of the mathematical community to Gardner when he retired from writing his Scientific American column in 1981. (The Dover edition is a reprint of the original, titled The Mathematical Gardner, published by Wadsworth.) Discreetly assembled for the occasion, the stature of the mathematicians submitting papers is a testament to Gardner's importance.
• 2004 Smart Science Tricks, Sterling; ISBN 1-4027-0910-2

External links and references

This page incorporated content from Martin Gardner, a page hosted on Wikipedia. Please consult the history of the original page to see a list of its authors. Therefor, this article is also available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

• The Linking Ring, Vol. 58, No. 4, April 1978, OUR COVER, Martin Gardner, by John Braun, page 47
• The Linking Ring, Vol. 90, No. 6, June 2010, Broken Wand, Martin Gardner, page 109
• http://www.martin-gardner.org/Obits.html, Martin Gardner Obituaries
• Obit Genii 2010 July