Martin Gardner (1914–2010) ‘Mathemagician’ Who Popularized Maths and Debunked Pseudoscience

Home , Martin Gardner

NEWS & VIEWS NATURE|Vol 465|17 June 2010 oBitUAry martin Gardner (1914–2010) ‘Mathemagician’ who popularized maths and debunked pseudoscience.

From the mid-1950s to the was a regular contributor to early 1980s, perhaps the the committee’s journal, the AGNUM

most well-known section of Skeptical Inquirer, producing /M Scientific American was the the monthly column ‘Notes of ‘Mathematical games’ column of a fringe watcher’ from 1983 RWITT E. E E. Martin Gardner. In recognition to 2002. of its success, three eminent Gardner’s playfulness was mathematicians dedicated irrepressible. In April 1975, he their 1982 book Winning Ways devoted his Scientific American for Your Mathematical Plays column to “recent but little to Gardner, who, they wrote, known” results: Fermat’s last “brought more mathematics theorem and the ‘four-colour to more millions than anyone problem’ (in which only four else”. Yet Gardner was not a colours are needed to colour mathematician. His only degree the shapes on a map so that no was in philosophy. adjacent regions are the same Gardner, who died on 22 colour) had been disproved; a May, aged 95, was born in Tulsa, lost drawing of Leonardo da Vinci Oklahoma, to a devout Methodist mother Enthusiastic readers sent letters pointing out revealed that Leonardo had invented the and an oil-geologist father. He was drawn to corrections, new results and suggestions for flush toilet; and the mystery of how to win at mathematics, science, magic and writing at a further columns. Gardner replied to most of chess had been resolved. An amazing number very young age, and published a ‘New color them himself, luring many young people into of readers were taken in. He also compiled divination’ in a magic journal at just 16. He mathematical careers. two booklets of ‘obscene magic tricks’ — not wanted to go to the California Institute of His expositions turned numerous games easy to obtain. Technology in Pasadena, but in the 1930s and objects into fixtures of Western culture: Gardner’s extensive writing, even his entry to Caltech required the completion the board game Hex; the Soma-cube puzzle; pranks, endeared him to his followers. of two years at a liberal-arts college first. the ‘polyomino’ shape commonly used in Tom Rodgers, a puzzle collector and Instead, Gardner went to the University of puzzles; the computer game Life; even Roger philanthropist, organized an exhibition Chicago in Illinois and studied philosophy, Penrose’s non-periodic tilings of the plane, of puzzles for the opening in 1993 of what graduating in 1936. which in turn have led to ‘quasicrystals’ and is now the Museum of Design Atlanta in After various jobs, including assistant oil even to non-periodic pattern designs on toilet Georgia, with an accompanying conference editor for The Tulsa Tribune, and four years paper! Gardner also popularized Penrose’s to honour Gardner. This was so popular in the navy, Gardner returned to Chicago ‘impossible staircase’ and ‘impossible triangle’, that ‘Gatherings for Gardner’ have occurred and began writing short stories for Esquire, or tribar — an apparently solid object made of in Atlanta every two years since. Several spending much of his spare time inventing, three straight square beams that meet at right hundred mathematicians, magicians and demonstrating and selling magic tricks. In angles at the vertices of the triangle. sceptics show up, and many more have to be 1947, he took a post in New York as editor Gardner’s greatest scoop occurred when turned away for lack of space. of Humpty Dumpty, a children’s magazine, the cryptographer Ronald Rivest told him Martin’s writings on mathematics were just and in the same year wrote an article on logic of his work on trapdoor ciphers — ways one strand in a remarkably prolific literary machines for Scientific American. of encoding and decoding information career. Among other things, he was an expert In the early 1940s, four graduate students that provide the secure encryption and on Lewis Carroll — his Annotated Alice, of Princeton University, including Richard public-key cryptography now used to the definitive guide to Alice in Wonderland, Feynman, had found a way of folding a hide information in almost every form of sold more than a million copies. In fact, the paper strip into a hexagon that could then electronic communication. From 1977 until extent of Gardner’s writing will probably be manipulated to show different hexagonal 1994, the CIA attempted to suppress the not be known for several years: a current faces. Gardner heard about these ‘flexagons’ export of such encryption methods. But bibliography covers 350 pages, and various and drove to Princeton to talk to the two Gardner’s article, published in August 1977, lists suggest that he wrote either 73 or 124 students still there. His article about flexagons had already provided a detailed description books. At the first Gardner gathering, was accepted by Scientific American for the of the techniques. computer scientist Don Knuth explained how December 1956 edition, and, as a result, In 1952, Gardner published In the Name of Martin managed to write so much: “He didn’t in the following issue Gardner began his Science (later renamed Fads and Fallacies in have a computer.” ‘Mathematical games’ column with an the Name of Science). In this seminal book on Martin is one of the few people who has article on magic squares. His lack of formal debunking pseudoscience, he exposed many earned the phrase ‘We shall not see his like mathematics training turned out to be his fallacies, including theories that the Earth is again’. Certainly, with or without a computer, forte — working slowly and carefully through flat or hollow, and various pseudoscientific few people have bridged the ‘two cultures’ so the ideas helped him to explain them. speculations regarding pyramids, phrenology, successfully. Gardner’s column, which ran for 311 UFOs and creationism. He was a founder of David singmaster issues over 25 years and was collected into the Committee for the Scientific Investigation David Singmaster is an honorary research fellow 15 books, soon became the main outlet of Claims of the Paranormal — now the at University College London, UK. for new and offbeat mathematical ideas. Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Later, he e-mail: [email protected]