Monday May 30, 2005 Gathering for Gardner
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If I go through all of my books, I have more non-fiction books by Martin Gardner than anybody else. I used to read his Mathematical Games column in the Scientific American and then used to buy the books that contained these articles. He has done more to popularise mathematics and the fun and games that can derive from it than any other person. He has also written a variety of other books on many different subjects. |
Because of this, he has a great following of mathematicans, puzzle enthusiasts and even magicians. To honour him, they regularly gather together and present papers based on his work. There have been five gatherings so far. I discovered the Gathering for Gardner website by following a chain of links from a recent post of mine which mentioned Scott Kim, and in particular, his Inversions (upside down lettering).
Now there are lots of things of interest on the Gathering for Gardner web site, but let me draw you attention to two books in PDF format that you can download:
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The Mathmagician and the Pied Puzzler: Edited by: Elwyn Berlekamp and Tom Rodgers [PDF] |
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Puzzle Craft by Stewart Coffin [PDF] |
The former is a collection of papers written by various people in tribute to Gardner and the latter is an excellent resource if you'd like to build your own puzzles. Also check out the various Martin Gardner books in their bookstore.
( May 30 2005, 07:32:28 AM PDT ) [Listen] Permalink Comments [2]
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Ah, but have you read his one and only novel, The Flight of Peter Fromm? I like it a lot, but it tends to elicit very strong feelings, both pro and con. It's fascinating to contrast this with his later work The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener.
Posted by Geoff Arnold on May 30, 2005 at 01:48 PM PDT #
I'm never quite sure what to make of mathematicians (although Gardner admits he wasn't a "professional") who write fiction. For example, Cliff Pickover teamed up with Piers Anthony to write novels such as Spider Legs which was a tad suspect. But then again, Rudy Rucker has done some wonderful fiction such as Master of Space and Time
Posted by Rich Burridge on May 30, 2005 at 04:00 PM PDT #