May 23, 2010
Martin Gardner, 95, math and science writer, dies (AP, 05/22/10)
Allyn Jackson, deputy editor of Notices, a journal of the American Mathematical Society, wrote in 2005 that Gardner “opened the eyes of the general public to the beauty and fascination of mathematics and inspired many to go on to make the subject their life’s work.”Jackson said Gardner’s “crystalline prose, always enlightening, never pedantic, set a new standard for high quality mathematical popularization.”
The mathematics society awarded him its Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition in 1987 for his work on math, particularly his Scientific American column.
“He was a renaissance man who built new ideas through words, numbers and puzzles,” his son, a professor of special education at the University of Oklahoma, told The Associated Press.
Gardner also became known as a skeptic of the paranormal and wrote columns for Skeptical Inquirer magazine. He wrote works debunking public figures such as psychic Uri Geller, who gained fame for claiming to bend spoons with his mind.
Most recently he wrote a feature published in Skeptical Inquirer’s March/April on Oprah Winfrey’s New Age interests.
Former magician James Randi, now a writer and investigator of paranormal claims, paid tribute to Gardner on his website Saturday, calling his colleague and longtime friend “a very bright spot in my firmament.”
MORE:
-ARCHIVES: Martin Gardner (Skeptical Inquirer)
-ESSAY: Bill Maher: Crank and Comic> (Martin Gardner, November / December 2009, Skeptical Inquirer)
-ESSAY: Bobby Fischer: Genius and Idiot (Martin Gardner, September / October 2009, Skeptical Inquirer)
-ESSAY: David Bohm and Jiddo Krishnamurti (Martin Gardner, July 2000, Skeptical Inquirer)
-REVIEW: of THE MIND'S BEST WORK By D.N. Perkins (Martin Gardner, NY Times Book Review)
-PROFILE: For Decades, Puzzling People With Mathematics (JOHN TIERNEY, 10/20/09, NY Times)
-PROFILE: Ten Outstanding Skeptics of the Century (Skeptical Inquirer)
-PROFILE: Profile: Martin Gardner, the Mathematical Gamester: For 35 years, he wrote Scientific American's Mathematical Games column, educating and entertaining minds and launching the careers of generations of mathematicians (Philip Yam, December 1995, Scientific American)
The clerk at the Barnes and Noble bookstore in downtown Manhattan is not all that helpful. Having had limited success with smaller retailers, I am hoping that the computer can tell me which of Martin Gardner's 50 or so books are available in the store's massive inventory. Most of his books, of course, deal with recreational mathematics, the topic for which he is best known. But he has also penned works in literature, philosophy and fiction. I am looking specifically for The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener, Gardner's essays that detail his approach to life. The clerk tells me to try the religion section, under "Christian friction." Is he kidding?A scowl breaks across Gardner's otherwise amicable face after I relate the story. He is puzzled, too, but for a different reason. The book has nothing to do with that, Gardner insists. He makes it a point to describe himself as philosophical theist—in the tradition, he says, of Plato and Kant, among others. "I decided I couldn't call myself a Christian in any legitimate sense of the word, but I have retained a belief in a personal God," Gardner clarifies.
-Three puzzles from Martin Gardner (1914-2010) (Philip Yam, 5/22/10-, Scientific American)
-REVIEW: of SCIENCE: GOOD, BAD AND BOGUS By Martin Gardner (Timothy Ferris, NY Times Book Review)