Home > Martin Gardner

1 Interests and writings

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Martin Gardner more or less singlehandedly sustained and nurtured interest in recreational mathematics for a large part of the 20th century. He is best known for his decades-long efforts in popular mathematics and science journalism. His interests are wide, ranging from science and philosophy to magic and the skeptical movement associated with James Randi. He lives in NormanNorman is a major city located in Cleveland County, Oklahoma and is part of the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Area. Norman is strategically situated due south of Oklahoma City and is a critical link to Oklahoma's technology corridor. As of July 1, 2003, the, Oklahoma.

Occasional conferences of people sharing his interests, known as the Gatherings for Gardner, are held in his honour. The first was held in 19931993 is a common year starting on Friday and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003 Events January January 1 Czechoslovakia divides. Establishment of independent Slovakia and Czech Republic..

In his Mathematical Games column in Scientific American, he introduced many subjects to a wider audience, including:

• FlexagonFlexagons are flat models made from folded strips of paper that can be folded, or flexed to reveal a number of hidden faces. They are amusing toys but have also caught the interest of mathematicians. Flexagons are usually square or rectangular tetraflexags
• John ConwayJohn Horton Conway (born December 26, 1937, Liverpool, England) is a prolific mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. Among amateur mathematicians, he is perhaps most wi's Game of LifeThis page is about Conway's Game of Life, the cellular automaton. For Hasbro's board game, see Hasbro's Game of Life. The Game of Life is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. It is the best-known example of
• PolyominoesA polyomino is a polyform with the square as its base form. It is constructed by placing a number of identical squares in distinct locations on the plane in such a way that at least one edge of each square coincides with an edge of one of the remaining sq
• The Soma cubeThe Soma cube is a solid dissection puzzle created by Piet Hein during a lecture on Quantum Mechanics by Werner Heisenberg. Seven pieces made out of unit cubes must be assembled into a 3x3x3 cube. The pieces can also be used to make a variety of other int
• The board game "Nash", also called " Hex" and sometimes called "John", independently created by Piet Hein and John Forbes Nash
• Tangrams
• Penrose tiling
• cryptanalysis/ public key cryptography/trapdoor ciphers/the RSA-129 cryptographic challenge
• The work of M. C. Escher
• Fractals
• many others... please add them here...

He is the author or editor of more than 100 books and booklets, including books on mathematics, science, pseudoscience, philosophy, literary criticism, and fiction (including Visitors from Oz, based on L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz).

In addition to his expository writing about mathematics, Gardner has been an avid controversialist on contemporary issues, arguing for his points of view in a wide range of fields. Though particularly well known for his critique of beliefs that he regards as pseudoscientific, Gardner has also taken sides on political, economic, historical, and philosophical controversies. His philosophical views, for example, are described and defended in his book The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener.

Martin Gardner has an abiding interest in religious belief. He has written repeatedly about what public figures such as Robert Maynard Hutchins, Mortimer Adler, and William F. Buckley, Jr. believed and whether their beliefs were logically consistent. In some cases, he has attacked prominent religious figures such as Mary Baker Eddy, on the grounds that their claims are unsupportable. His semiautobiograpical novel The Flight of Peter Fromm depicts a traditionally Protestant Christian man struggling with his faith, examining 20th century scholarship and intellectual movements, and ultimately rejecting Christianity while remaining a theist. He describes his own belief as philosophical theism: it is inspired by the theology of the philosopher Miguel de Unamuno. While critical of organized religions, Gardner believes in God, knowing that this belief cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed by reason. At the same time, he is skeptical of claims that God has communicated with human beings through spoken or telepathic revelation or through miracles in the natural world.

Martin Gardner's philosophy may be summarised as follows: There is nothing supernatural, and nothing in human reason or visible in the world to compel people to believe in God. The mystery of existence is enchanting, but a belief in The Old One comes from faith without evidence. However, with faith and prayer people can find greater happiness than without. If there is an afterlife, the loving Old One is real.

Gardner is respected by both the magic and scientific communities. His book, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, has become a classic work. He is deeply admired by James Randi.

There is an asteroid named in honor of Martin Gardner (2587) Gardner.

Gardner has sometimes used pseudonyms, including "Uriah Fuller" (a parody of Uri Geller, whom Gardner considers a fraud) and "Armand T. Ringer". Under the name Uriah Fuller he wrote Confessions of a Psychic and Further Confessions of a Psychic, two privately printed booklets explaining how so-called psychics do their "seemingly impossible paranormal feats."