Comments on: Martin Gardner, 1914 – 2010

By: Tim Moyer

Tim Moyer — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 21:02:28 +0000

I loved Aha! Gotcha! It’s a great book.

By: Summer « A kind of library

Summer « A kind of library — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 22:04:40 +0000

[...] Martin Gardner (May 22), and [...]

By: Parson Smith

Parson Smith — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 04:07:50 +0000

Martin was a wonderful man. He will be sorely missed.

By: मनोरंजात्मक गणित के जनक – मार्टिन गार्डनर को सलाम « www.blogprahari.com

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:56:55 +0000

[...] Martin Gardner, 1914 – 2010 (blogs.discovermagazine.com) About this post in Hindi-Roman and English yeh chitthi martin gardner ko shrandhanjali hai. ganit ko lokppriya bnaane unka yogdaan sabse adhik hai. yeh hindi (devnaagree) mein hai. ise aap roman ya kisee aur bhaarateey lipi me padhne ke liye, daahine taraf, oopar ka widget dekhen. [...]

By: Lewisgk

Lewisgk — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:30:39 +0000

He was a giant… just a giant intellectual. I remember growing up waiting each month for his column in Scientific American. He was a very strong influence. I have most of his books starting with The First Scientific American Book of Puzzles and Games 1959. I marveled at his breadth of knowledge. He taught me how to think. He was the force that guided me through Chemical Engineering into Solid State physics and materials science. Martin Gardner also showed the beauty of reason and the beauty of our Universe without the need for magic, fairy tales, and witchcraft. I never met him. I will never forget him. A great loss.

By: Martin Gardner, 1914 – 2010

Martin Gardner, 1914 – 2010 — Sat, 29 May 2010 17:44:52 +0000

[...] are tributes to Gardner at Discover Magazine, Scientific American, and also some thoughts by Richard Dawkins. I find it interesting that Gardner [...]

By: Tirbeca Mike

Tirbeca Mike — Tue, 25 May 2010 16:04:24 +0000

My lifelong love of learning and performing magic tricks can be traced to reading one of Mr. Gardner’s Scientific American columns decades ago, so he had a huge influence on my life and thinking. I reread his “Fads & Fallacies In the Name of Science” every couple of years, not just for the information but for his wonderful wit. Thanks to Mr. Gardner, I have a fun and fascinating hobby as well as a healthy skepticism about all things pseudo. He will be sorely missed.

By: fernando

fernando — Tue, 25 May 2010 14:07:13 +0000

When I read Martin Garner’s ‘Science Good, Bad & Bogus’ I felt I was not alone. Most of us start surrounded by a non scientific, non skeptical and Bogus universe… there was Martin saying ‘humbug’ in his special manner, and giving us a fresh start.

By: bhesper

bhesper — Tue, 25 May 2010 01:35:36 +0000

After having read his ‘Fads & Fallacies In The Name Of Science’, and his ‘Science Good, Bad & Bogus’, I knew Martin Gardner belonged to the best specimens of mankind.
Together with people like Bertrand Russell, James Randi and Richard Dawkins he shaped my way of thinking and outlook on this world.
I consider myself really blessed to have read his great works on mathematics, science and the universe.
One of my great ‘teachers’, and examples of what man can be has gone. I will surely remember and reread him for the rest of my life.
bhe

By: MJ

MJ — Tue, 25 May 2010 01:04:37 +0000

Like all of us here, I always admired Mr. Gardner. I never really used any of his effects because they had that certain stench of math. They didn’t seem at all magical.

Well, I’ve been working with an effect he created that was recently re-published in one of the magic magazines. It’s a wonderful “puzzle,’ while not being exactly magic.

I have shown it to seven (maybe eight) middle school and high school math teachers. Only one has been able to give me a somewhat reasonable explaination of why it works EVERY TIME!

This guy was really brilliant. He was a legend. We will miss him, even if many of us have no idea who he was. He left a stamp on our civilization that will never be erased.

-MJ

By: Martin Gardner (1914-2010), EPD « Pepquímic

Martin Gardner (1914-2010), EPD « Pepquímic — Mon, 24 May 2010 23:28:48 +0000

[...] Comiat des de Discover magazine. [...]

By: Martin Gardner, 1914 – 2010 | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine - http

Martin Gardner, 1914 – 2010 | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine - http — Mon, 24 May 2010 20:43:14 +0000

[...] więcej: Martin Gardner, 1914 – 2010 | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine Comments RSS [...]

By: RIP Martin Gardner (1914-2010) « Spin, strangeness, and charm

RIP Martin Gardner (1914-2010) « Spin, strangeness, and charm — Mon, 24 May 2010 20:23:46 +0000

[...] many tributes that are beginning to pour in about this extraordinary man bear witness to his irrepressible [...]

By: Walabio

Walabio — Mon, 24 May 2010 15:45:08 +0000

He was a good man. These words comfort me when friends pass away:

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

——

Mark Twain

By: Martin Gardner and Hinton’s Cubes « Ars Mathematica

Martin Gardner and Hinton’s Cubes « Ars Mathematica — Mon, 24 May 2010 15:26:20 +0000

[...] Gardner has just recently passed away. I remember really liking his books when I was in high school, but I haven’t looked at them [...]

By: Roy Crawford

Roy Crawford — Mon, 24 May 2010 15:19:36 +0000

Mr. Gardner was in his early ’80′s when I first met him, but I always enjoyed how much he acted like a kid when he showed off his magic tricks. The first time I had dinner with him and Charlotte, he stopped in the middle of the conversation, explained that he had a problem with too much pressure in one eye that he needed to relieve, and that he would cover his eye with one hand while he did so as not to freak us out. So, he covered an eye, stuck a fork under the hand, and dug around behind it until white liquid started running down his cheek. Then he laughed, lowered his hand, and showed us one of those little containers of coffee cream he had punctured with the fork. How many of you have seen him do this?

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:45:49 +0000

Aha Gotcha was my introduction to skepticism when I was 10 years-old.
http://freephilosophicaldiscussions.blogspot.com/2010/05/when-i-was-about-10-or-12-i-went-to-my.html

By: Anthony Abbot

Anthony Abbot — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:34:08 +0000

Adieu to a genius who inspired my love of maths and my fascination with the beauty of the mathematical world. As I write this I am fondly looking at my shelf of his books – still incomplete – that I own and have collected over the last few decades. Farewell and thank you Martin for sharing your insights with us all.

By: Enezio E. de Almeida Filho

Enezio E. de Almeida Filho — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:22:42 +0000

From Gardner’s book Whys in his chapter on immortality:

Lord, remember me! If God is the creator and sustainer of the universe, if every wave and particle is what it is, does what it does, because God remembers it, then we exist now because God remembers us. And if God remembers us after we die, we may continue to exist. That is all a theist need say to establish in his or her heart the possibility of immortality.

Now I’m not sure about Gardner being a true God skeptic…

By: Phillip Helbig

Phillip Helbig — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:16:24 +0000

I always thoroughly enjoyed his column in Scientific American when
I was a teenager. And I think his annotations in “The Annotated Alice”
are more interesting than the book themselves (it’s an annotated
version of the two Alice in Wonderland books, for those who don’t
know it).

Indeed. He also annotated Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark

By: lookylou

lookylou — Mon, 24 May 2010 08:27:14 +0000

This is indeed a great loss. I always enjoyed Mr. Gardner’s columns in Sci. Am. (back when that magazine was still respectable). @Torbjörn Larsson That Gardner wasn’t a true “skeptic” in the limited modern sense of that word is one of the reasons why I enjoyed his work. He was a polymath, much like Asimov, and like Asimov (and Sagan) one of the great populizers of science and math. Unlike many of those who call themsevles skeptics today, as brilliant as
Gardner was, he never assumed he knew more about a given field than people who spent their entire lives in that field (though oftentimes, he actually did).

By: Allen

Allen — Mon, 24 May 2010 04:26:31 +0000

We can take comfort in the fact that energy and matter cannot be destroyed, so while he may be dead, he’s not gone forever.

By: jcm

jcm — Mon, 24 May 2010 01:16:26 +0000

According to PZ Myers, he was 95.

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 24 May 2010 00:30:29 +0000

Jeffrey Davis (#66):

Perhaps, being unfamiliar with Gardner’s background, you unconsciously filled in his motives when you read the essay. But as Gardner said regarding that essay:

Apparently I, a philosophical theist unattached to any organized religion, take the Catholic faith more seriously than Wills. It is either what it claims to be, God’s one true revelation to humanity, or it isn’t.

If anyone is curious, the essay reprinted in “Are Universes Thicker Than Blackberries?” (along with the addendum that is the source of my quote). By chance you can actually view the whole thing (it’s short) on Google Books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=z9jH9mYiO5IC&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=the+strange+case+of+gary+wills&source=bl&ots=7GAtBqUVTy&sig=_j_KGrY0-APR8k4AFodQugCvdNc&hl=en&ei=RMb5S4z5ApLIMsyf4ZcF&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAQ

By: Chris Winter

Chris Winter — Mon, 24 May 2010 00:06:50 +0000

David Suzuki’s The Nature of Things had a feature devoted to Martin Gardner.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiAU3IWQAuE