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Martin Gardner

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Martin Gardner (born October 21, 1914, Tulsa, Oklahoma) is an American recreational mathematician, magician, skeptic, and author of the long-running but now discontinued "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American.

Contents

Interests and writings

Martin Gardner more or less singlehandedly sustained and nurtured interest in recreational mathematics in the U.S. for a large part of the 20th century. He is best known for his decades-long efforts in popular mathematics and science journalism, particularly through his "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American. His interests range from science and philosophy to magic and the philosophical movement of skepticism, of which he is considered a notable figure in the field. He lives in Norman, Oklahoma.

Occasional conferences of people sharing his interests, known as the "Gatherings for Gardner", are held in his honor. The first was held in 1993.

The "Mathematical Games" column ran from 1956 to 1981 and introduced many subjects to a wider audience, including:

In 1981, on Gardner's retirement, the column was replaced by Douglas Hofstadter's "Metamagical Themas", a name that is an anagram of "Mathematical Games".

Gardner also wrote a "puzzle" story column for (Isaac) Asimov's Science Fiction magazine for a while in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

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, and stories about an imaginary numerologist named Dr. Matrix). He has been considered an authority on Lewis Carroll, but his viewpoint has recently come under some criticism from the proponents of the "Carroll Myth"; Gardner has hit back very aggressively against the most famous of these - Karoline Leach - in a recent issue of Knight Letter, the journal of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America.

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, from general semantics to fuzzy logic to watching TV (he once wrote a negative review of the book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television). Though particularly well known for his critique of pseudoscientific beliefs, 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.

Gardner is well known for his sometimes controversial philosophy of mathematics. He wrote negative reviews of The Mathematical Experience by Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh and What is mathematics, really? by Hersh, both of which had criticisms of aspects of mathematical Platonism and the first of which was well-received by the mathematical community. While Gardner is often perceived as a hard-core Platonist, his reviews demonstrate some formalist tendencies. Among Gardner's claims are that his views are widespread among mathematicians, but Hersh has countered that in his experience as a professional mathematician and speaker, this is not the case. [link]

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 inspired by the theology of the philosopher Miguel de Unamuno. While critical of organized religions, Gardner believes in God, claiming 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. [To an atheist] "the universe is the most exquisite masterpiece ever constructed by nobody", from G. K. Chesterton, is one of Martin's favorite quotes.

Gardner's book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science has become a classic work. He is a member of CSICOP, and wrote a column called "Notes of a Fringe Watcher" (originally "Notes of a Psi-Watcher") from 1983 to 2002 in the Skeptical Inquirer. These have been collected in five books: New Age: Notes of a Fringe Watcher (1988), On the Wild Side (1992), Weird Water and Fuzzy Logic (1996), Did Adam and Eve Have Navels (2000), and Are Universes Thicker than Blackberries (2003).

There is an asteroid, (2587) Gardner, named in his honor.

Gardner has sometimes used pseudonyms, including "Uriah Fuller" (a parody of Uri Geller, whom Gardner considers a fraud), "Armand T. Ringer", "Dr. Irving Joshua Matrix", and "George Groth". 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."

Selected works

Note: Gardner has a number of magic books written "for the trade", which are not listed here.

Chronology of selected books by Gardner

Collections of Scientific American columns

Fifteen books together encompass Martin Gardner's columns from Scientific American: Three other books collect some or all of Martin Gardner's columns from Scientific American:

See also

External links

 

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