Saturday, May 29, 2010

Martin Gardner RIP

Martin Gardner died last Saturday . He wrote the Mathematical Games column in Scientific American from 1956 to 1981 and several books of collected columns (as well as many other books). I enjoyed his recreational mathematics works while growing up and they probably influenced me towards a career in mathematics.
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  1. AnonymousMay 31, 2010 at 6:12 PM

    Thanks for posting this. I think I first ran across Gardner when I picked up Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science off my Dad's bookshelf. I also greatly enjoyed his Sci Am column, especially the Christmas ones. I remember columns about tangrams, Dr. Matrix, Life and J. H. Conway, Roger Penrose discoveries, and many fascinating paradoxes. Later, I read more anti-pseudoscience stuff from Gardner, and some philosophical writings.
    I gather that Gardner was not only prolific and insightful, but also a nice, generous, and widely loved man. I wish the world were such that a person like him was valued more, and more widely.

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