X-Nico

9 unusual facts about Martin Gardner


Daniel Webster Hering

Hering also was one of the original citations for Martin Gardner in his work Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science in which it is argued he founded the modern scientific skepticism movement.

Danilo BlanuĊĦa

Snarks were so named later by the American mathematician Martin Gardner in 1976, after the mysterious and elusive object of Lewis Carroll's poem The Hunting of the Snark.

Deltahedron

M. Gardner Fractal Music, Hypercards, and More: Mathematical Recreations, Scientific American Magazine.

Fair division

Envy-free division was first solved for the 3 player case in 1960 independently by John Selfridge of Northern Illinois University and John Horton Conway at Cambridge University, the algorithm was first published in the 'Mathematical Games' column by Martin Gardner in Scientific American.

Martin Gardner and Ian Stewart have both published books with sections about the problem.

FreeCell

In the June 1968 edition of Scientific American, Martin Gardner described in his "Mathematical Games" column a game by C. L. Baker that is similar to FreeCell, except that cards on the tableau are built by suit rather than by alternate colors.

Giovanni Girolamo Saccheri

Martin Gardner, Non-Euclidean Geometry, Chapter 14 of The Colossal Book of Mathematics, W. W.Norton & Company, 2001, ISBN 0-393-02023-1

The Unknown Witches of Oz

As with other attempts at contemporizing Oz fiction (see, for example, Martin Gardner's Visitors from Oz), the success of the approach will vary with the taste of the individual reader.

Worms?

"Worm Paths", chapter 17 in: Martin Gardner, 1986, Knotted Doughnuts and Other Mathematical Entertainments, W. H. Freeman and Company.


Burr puzzle

On the late 1970s, however, the six-piece burr regained the attention of inventors and collectors, thanks largely to a computer analysis conducted by the mathematician Bill Cutler and its publication in Martin Gardner's column on Scientific American.

Schoch circles

In 1979, Thomas Schoch discovered a dozen new Archimedean circles; he sent his discoveries to Scientific American's "Mathematical Games" editor Martin Gardner.


see also

Copperopolis, California

Author K. Martin Gardner expounds on this literary history, and Twain's friendship with renowned scientist of the time, Nikola Tesla, in his novel Copperopolis.