November 2004 Master of Recreational Mathematics — and Much More an Interview with Martin Gardner

FOCUS November 2004 Master of Recreational Mathematics — and Much More An Interview with Martin Gardner

By Don Albers

On October 21, Martin Gardner cel- he has produced more than 60 books, a few local magicians in Tulsa, Logan ebrated his ninetieth birthday. For 25 of most still in print; many have been Waite and Wabash Hughes, who worked his 90 years, Gardner wrote the monthly bestsellers. His Annotated Alice has sold for the Wabash Railroad. “Mathematical Games “ column for Sci- over a million copies, and the 15 volumes entific American. His columns have in- collecting his “Mathematical Games” DA: At what age did this occur? spired thousands of readers to learn columns have gone through several more about the mathematics that he printings. All 15 volumes have been digi- MG: I was a high school student at the loved to explore and explain. Among his tized and will soon be published by the time. I’ve never performed magic; it’s just column correspondents were several dis- MAA on a single CD entitled Martin been a hobby. The only time I got paid tinguished mathematicians and scien- Gardner’s Mathematical Games. for doing magic was when I was a stu- tists, including John Horton Conway, dent at The University of Chicago; I used Persi Diaconis, Ron Graham, Douglas In his ninetieth year, he has returned to to work at the Marshall Field’s depart- Hofstadter, Richard Guy, Don Knuth, Sol Oklahoma, where he was born. He is in ment store during the Christmas season Golomb, and Roger Penrose. good health and full of energy. We look demonstrating Gilbert magic sets. I forward to more from him as he begins learned a lot from the experience. That Gardner’s columns have earned him a his second 90 years. What follows is a was the first time I realized that you’re place of honor in the mathematical com- small portion of an interview done at really not doing a magic trick well until munity, which has given him many Gardner’s home in Hendersonville, NC you’ve done it in front of an audience awards. But he has always declined invi- in the fall of 1990 and spring of 1991.

Martin reading on his front porch at age Martin at age 10, 1925. Martin and his younger brother 15, 1929 Jim, 1920. about a hundred times. Then it becomes tations to accept awards in person, on the Don Albers: As a high school student you second nature, and you know what to say. grounds that he is not a mathematician. were already writing articles for The “I’m strictly a journalist,” he insists. “I Sphinx, a magazine devoted to magic. DA: What are the elements of a success- just write about what other people are Does your interest in magic go back to ful magic trick? doing in the field.” His modesty is admi- your father? rable, but we insist that he is far more MG: The most important thing is to than a journalist. Martin Gardner: Magic wasn’t a special startle people, and have them wonder hobby of his, but he did show me some how it’s done. Close-up magic that you In addition to his massive contributions magic tricks when I was a little boy. I do on a table right in front of people is to mathematics, Gardner has written learned my first tricks from him, in par- very different from the stage illusions about magic, philosophy, literature, and ticular one with a knife and little pieces that David Copperfield does. It’s close- pseudoscience. Over his first ninety years, of paper on it. I then got acquainted with up magic that most intrigues me, espe-

4 November 2004 FOCUS cially when it has a mathematical flavor. to read that way. It was very embarrass- MG: I was very good at math in high I did a book on mathematical tricks that ing when I was in first grade, because the school. In fact, it and physics were the has, for example, a chapter on topologi- teacher would hold up cards that said ‘cat’ only subjects in which I got good grades. cal tricks. I did two massive books for the and ‘dog’ and I was always the first to call I was bored to death by the other classes. magic profession: The Encyclopedia of out the word. She had to tell me to shut I flunked a class in Latin and had to take Impromptu Magic and Martin Gardner it over. I just don’t have a good ear for Presents. The first book covers tricks that languages. don’t require any special equipment. A lot of them are just jokes and gags of the DA: You got your B.A. in 1936, then type ‘bet you can’t do this.’ worked briefly for the Tulsa Tribune as a reporter, and then came back to The DA: Your book Mathematics, Magic, and University of Chicago to the PR office Mystery has been a bestseller for many writing news releases (primarily science years. releases), and took a graduate course from Carnap. What else did you do until MG: I waste a lot of time on magic. Dai the outbreak of World War II? Vernon was one of the great inventors of magic. He was a great influence on Persi MG: I had various jobs. I worked as a case Diaconis. Persi traveled with Dai for a worker for the Chicago Relief Adminis- long time. I knew Vernon very well. I tration, I had to visit 140 families regu- knew Persi when he was a student at larly in what was called the Black Belt. I NYU. You probably heard the story how also had several odd jobs: waiter, soda he got into Harvard. jerk, etc. Remember, this was at the height of the Great Depression. DA: As I recall, he gave you some credit for writing a letter of recommendation DA: In December of 1941, the U.S. en- Gardner as a navy sailor, 1941. to Fred Mosteller, the Harvard statisti- tered World War II and you enlisted in Gardner as a navy sailor, 1941. cian. the Navy.

MG: Mosteller is a magic buff. When MG: I ended up serving on DE 134, a Persi said he wanted to get into Harvard, destroyer escort, in the Atlantic. I was I wrote to Fred and said that Persi can miserably seasick for about three days, do the best bottom deal and second deal and then I was never seasick again. I of anybody I know, and that got him into couldn’t wait for the war to end, but later Harvard. I talked to Fred on the phone I looked back at it as a rather pleasurable about it and he said, “Is he willing to time of my life. You’re on a ship, you major in statistics?” And Persi said sure make friends with your shipmates, you he’d major in statistics if that would get got liberties now and then, and you didn’t him into Harvard. So he went up to have to worry about anything. Harvard, and they had a session together, maybe doing card tricks. Mosteller got I’ve had migraine headaches all my life him into Harvard. that were fairly severe when I was in high school. When I enlisted in the Navy, I did DA: What did your mother do? not list my migraines because I was afraid they wouldn’t take me. I feared that I MG: She was a kindergarten teacher be- might develop migraine headaches dur- fore marriage, but then became a house- ing battle situations. We were part of a wife, caring for three children. Her hobby so-called “killer group” of six destroyers was painting, and I have a number of her looking for German submarines. During paintings hanging in the house. Both of Martin Gardner with the Mad Hatter in my four years in the Navy, I never had a my parents lived into their nineties. I had Central Park, New York City. migraine headache. I’m convinced that a brother and sister, both younger, who they’re associated with periods of anxi- are deceased. up, to give the other children a chance to ety. When you’re in the Navy, you don’t learn how to read. worry about what you’re going to do to- I learned to read before I went to school. morrow, what tie to put on, etc. You just My mother read The Wizard of Oz to me DA: As a kid, do you remember other follow orders. In a way, you have a big when I was a little boy, and I looked over strong interests in addition to magic? sense of freedom. Otherwise, I have no her shoulder as she read it. I learned how other explanation.

5 FOCUS November 2004

Martin Gardner with his brother Jim and Gardner with his wife Charlotte, and Martin and grandson Martin. sister Judith. their two sons Jim, left, and Tom.

DA: At the end of the war, you promptly York City, because for writers that’s ematician who has to teach a course in went back to Chicago. where all the action is. I had a friend who mathematics, and then write. To me, it’s worked for Parents’ Institute, and who hard to imagine how a professional MG: Yes, I went back, and I could have was in charge of their periodicals for chil- mathematician would have time to even had my old job back in the public rela- dren. They were starting a new magazine write a book. I had nothing else to do, tions office at The University of Chicago called Humpty Dumpty, and were look- except research for those columns, and because there was an understanding that ing for activity features, where you fold write them up. if you enlisted in the service you could the page or stick something through the get your old job back. But the one rea- page, or cut; where you destroy the page. DA: Most people that I’ve ever talked to son I didn’t go back to the PR office was So he hired me to do the activity features about your Scientific American columns that I sold a story, my first sale, to Es- for Humpty Dumpty, as well as a short know that it was your job, but they’re still quire. The title of the story, “The Horse story for every issue and a poem of moral awed by the fact that you turned out on the Escalator,” came from a joke go- advice. something really sparkling every month. ing around at the time about a man who It’s one thing to write something every entered Marshall Fields department store DA: Your work with children’s magazines month, but that doesn’t mean that it’s on a horse, and the elevator operator told went up to about 1956. By 1957 you were going to be inspirational or great fun to him he couldn’t take the horse on the el- at Scientific American. So there was not read each time. evator. And he said, “But lady, he gets sick much of a hiatus between Humpty on the escalator!” It was a shaggy dog joke Dumpty and Scientific American. MG: I miss doing those columns, they about a horse. The story is about a man were a lot of fun, and I met many fasci- who collected horse jokes, and his wife MG: No, I stopped working for Humpty nating people while doing them. Once didn’t think any of them were funny, but Dumpty to start “Mathematical Games” the column got started I began hearing she laughed heartily every time he told at Scientific American. I couldn’t do both. from people like Sol Golomb and John one to conceal the fact. So that was my It started with the sale in December 1956, Conway, who were really doing creative first story. I decided that maybe I could of an article on Hexaflexagons. That was work that had a recreational flavor. That make a living as a freelance writer, and I not a column, but that led to the column. kept the column going. It became much very quickly sold Esquire a second story, When Gerry Piel, the publisher of Scien- more interesting after I began getting and that was the “No-Sided Professor,” tific American, called me and suggested feedback from people like Conway, Ron about topology. the column. That was when I resigned Graham, Don Knuth, and many others. from Parents. DA: That had to give you a lot of confi- Probably my most famous column was dence, helping to convince you that you DA: A lot of people are astonished that the one in which I introduced Conway’s could earn a living as a writer. anybody could turn out one of those col- game of Life. Conway had no idea when umns on mathematical games and rec- he showed it to me that it was going to MG: That’s right, but Esquire changed reations every single month for Scientific take off the way it did. He came out on a editors after I had sold them several sto- American. visit, and he asked me if I had a Go board. ries. The new editor had a different I did have one, and we played Life on the policy, and he didn’t care for the kind of MG: Perhaps they don’t realize I had no Go board. He had about 50 other things stories I was writing. So I moved to New other job. I’m not a professional math- to talk about besides that. I thought that

6 November 2004 FOCUS

Life was wonderful — a fasci- DA: You’ve read a lot of contem- nating computer game. When I porary material, and you’ve read did the first column on Life, it a lot by those who have been really took off. There was even gone a long time. Are there any an article in Time magazine of those departed people that about it. you’d like to sit down with over dinner, or sit down here in your DA: Can you tell me a little bit library and chat with them? more about how you actually approach writing? You previ- MG: I’d love to chat with Gödel ously said something about how for example. He had some you did your monthly columns strange cosmological views, and over a long period of time. You I’d like to talk to him about that, write about many other things about time travel into the past. I as well. Do you have a different never could quite understand style or a different mode when Gardner doing some table magic that. And of course he was a you write about pseudoscience? dedicated Platonist. He thought all of mathematics was out MG: I don’t think so. I’ve never there, including the transfinite worried about style. I just write as Martin Gardner regrets that it is impossible for him to: numbers. I’d enjoy talking to clearly as I can, and I suppose it’s him about that. Of course I’d improved over the years. I get in- 1. Evaluate: love to talk with Einstein and terested in a topic, and I do as Angle trisections Neils Bohr. Among puzzle mak- much research as I can on it. I have Circle squarings ers, I’d most want to talk with my library of working tools, so I Henry Dudeney and Sam Loyd. can do a lot of research right here. Proofs of Fermat’s last theorem I also would enjoy talking to I usually rough out the topic first, Proofs of the four-color theorem Bertrand Russell. He’s one of just list all the things that I have to Roulette systems my heroes. say, and then I sit down and try to 2. Give advice on, or supply references for, put it together on the typewriter. DA: Here’s an equally easy ques- It’s all kind of a sequence that is high school science or math projects. tion for you. Once you’ve de- hard to explain. It comes easy for 3. Inscribe books for strangers. parted this life, let’s suppose you me, I enjoy writing and I don’t suf- 4. Give lectures, or appear on radio or TV shows. had an opportunity to come fer from writer’s block, where I sit 5. Attend cocktail parties. back in a hundred years. What and wonder for an hour how I’m questions would you most want going to phrase the opening sen- 6. Make trips to Manhattan except under to know the answers to that tence. extreme provocation. might have been developed 7. Donate books to libraries. during that time? DA: Which of your more than sixty 8. Provide answers to old puzzles. books is in some sense a favorite? MG: I guess I’d be interested to 9. Prepare material on speculation for toy know if various famous un- MG: I think my Whys of a Philo- companies or advertising agencies. solved problems had been sophical Scrivener is my favorite be- 10. Put the reader in touch with Dr. Matrix. solved, such as the Goldbach cause it is a detailed account of ev- Conjecture. But I don’t have any erything I believe. Martin Gardner’s form letter, often sent as a response to re- great desire to come back and quests he received from readers. learn what modern mathemat- DA: Let’s move back to math for a ics is up to. You’re giving me minute. You’ve lived long enough now to credit for being more of a mathemati- see a lot of really interesting mathematician than I really am. I’m strictly a jour- cal ideas hit the scene, and there are also nalist. I just write about what other some really beautiful ideas that were here physics, and in particular the develop- people are doing in the field. long before you were on the scene. First, ment of superstring theory. That came during your own lifetime, what ideas, as a complete surprise to me. It’s a beau- what discoveries just kind of knocked tiful theory of particles, and it may or your socks off? may not be true, but it’s the hottest thing in town now in particle physics. It opens MG: Well, I think the most interesting de- up the possibility that higher dimensions Thanks to Jim Gardner for supplying the velopments are mainly in mathematical are not just artifacts but actually real. photos that accompany this interview.