Martin Gardner

Abstract

Martin Gardner, the world’s most authoritative and prolific author of works on mathematical recreation of all time, was born on 21 October 1914 in Tulsa, Oklahoma and died on 22 May 2010. From 1956 to 1981 he was editor of a column in Scientific American dedicated to mathematical puzzles and games which soon had a fans in every corner of the globe. He has also published hundreds of articles in various magazines and written more than 70 books dealing with topics ranging from science to philosophy, from mathematics to literature.

One of Gardner’s main characteristics is that, with a gamer’s lightness of touch, he is always able to enter into even the most complex branches of mathematics, starting from points that are curious and intriguing. Contrary to what you might think, however, his formal training was not in the sciences. His only degree is in philosophy, which he received from the University of Chicago in 1936. He is completely self-taught in mathematics. His desire to know grew out of his lifelong passion for magic tricks, which started when he was just a boy, and an innate curiosity in transcendent themes. His first book, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, published in 1952, examines and dismantles more than 50 kinds of pseudoscientific beliefs concerning the paranormal.