The 81-year-old Gardner seems more comfortable talking about others than about himself. Perhaps part of the reason is that he has no formal training in mathematics. In discussing his youth, he muses on religion and philosophy, topics to which we keep veering back. "When I grew up in Tulsa, it was called the oil capital of the word," he says. "Now it's known as the home of Oral Roberts. That's how far Tulsa has gone down the hill." He describes his father, a petroleum geologist, as a tolerant fellow who put up with his mother's Methodist devotion and Gardner's own early fanaticism. Influenced by a Sunday school teacher and a Seventh-Day Adventist, the young Gardner became convinced the second coming was near and that 666 was the number of the pope. "I grew up believing that the Bible was a revelation straight from God," he recounts. "It lasted about halfway through my years at the University of Chicago."
University life, however, slowly eroded his fundamentalist beliefs. "Certain authors have been a big influence on me," Gardner says and enumerates them. Besides Plato and Kant, there are G. K. Chesterton, William James, Charles S. Peirce, Miguel de Unamuno, Rudolf Carnap and H. G. Wells. From each, Gardner has culled a bit of wisdom. "From Chesterton I got a sense of mystery in the universe, why anything exists, " he expounds. "From Wells I took his tremendous interest in and respect for science." That's why he does not accept the virgin birth of Christ or a blood atonement for the sin of Adam and Eve, as he writes in the afterword of his semiautobiographical novel, The Flight of Peter Fromm. "I don't believe God interrupts natural laws or tinkers with the universe," he remarks. From James he derived his notion that belief in God is a matter of faith only. "I don't think there's any way to prove the existence of God logically."
Pondering existence for a living, however, was not his calling. "If you're a professional philosopher, there's no way to make any money except to teach. It has no use anywhere," Gardner offers. Instead he turned to writing, becoming assistant oil editor for the Tulsa Tribune and then returning to Chicago to assume a post in the university's press office. In 1941 he began a four-year stint on a destroyer escort (fittingly, the U.S.S. Pope ). After World War II, Gardner returned to Chicago, selling short stories to Esquire and taking more courses in philosophy under the GI bill.
Freelance writing is unstable, and Gardner found himself in New York City in the early 1950s, where he landed a regular job with the children's periodical Humpty Dumpty's Magazine, writing features and designing activities. "I did all the cutouts," he beams. But it was his lifelong interest in magic, still his main hobby, that led him to mathematical games. Every Saturday a group of conjurers would gather in a restaurant in lower Manhattan. "There would be 50 magicians or so, all doing magic tricks," Gardner reminisces. One of them intrigued him with a so-called hexaflexagon—a strip of paper folded into a hexagon, which turns inside out when two sides are pinched. Fascinated, Gardner drove to Princeton, where graduate students invented it. (A magician also played a pivotal role in another major step in Gardner's life: he introduced Gardner to his future wife, Charlotte.)
Having sold a piece on logic machines to Scientific American a few years prior (which, incidentally, included a cardboard cutout), he approached the magazine with an article on flexagons. "Gerry Piel called me in and asked, 'Is there enough material similar to this to make a regular column?' I said I thought there was, and he said to turn one in," Gardner recalls. It was a bit of a snow job: Gardner did not even own a mathematics book at the time. "I rushed around New York and bought as many books on recreational math as I could," he states. Gardner officially began his new career in the January 1957 issue; the rubric "Mathematical Games" was chosen by the magazine. "By coincidence, they're my initials," Gardner observes. "I always had a private interest in math without any formal training. I just sort of became a self-taught mathematician. If you look at those columns in chronological order, you will see they started out on a much more elementary level than the later columns."
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12 Comments
Add CommentMay you rest in peace, Mr. Gardner. I hope you have had the great "Aha!" as you passed into the next life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease don't insult his memory by insinuating that he is in his "next life." He contributed during his time and he will be missed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a degree in math and am a magician and am inspired to read Mr. Gardner's books! I wonder if he knew his contemporary, Richard Feynman. They seem to think alike - OUTSIDE the box. Mr Gardner's writings, musings, and indeed his life have obviously been an inspiration to so many. What a remarkable man.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe New York Times obit quotes Martin Gardner as follows: "I just play all the time," he said in an interview with Skeptical Inquirer in 1998, "and am fortunate enough to get paid for it."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd we readers of yours got just so much fun out of your "play" - not to mention an education, profound insights into science (and the nonscience that you debunked), and even, quite often, great inspiration. Thank you, Martin Gardner, R.I.P..
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What a great life Martin Gardner had. He will be missed greatly. He was an inspiration to many of us, and without a doubt, an inspiration to many more.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat a great life Martin Gardner had. Now, it's really up to all of us to continue Martin's work by inspiring future generations, by sharing all sorts of interesting ideas and findings in all different fields of science. Martin will be missed, but we won't let his work be forgotten!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMartin Gardner should also be known as an American thinker and philosopher. He was one of the great expositors of the ideas of great philosophers and thinkers, just as he was a great expositor of the ideas of great mathematicians.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHis books of philosophical and other subjects include:
The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener
Are Universes as Thick as Blackberries?
The Night is Large
I would like to write an impassioned exhortation on why his books should never be forgotten but I don't think it is necessary: As long as the American spirit survives, the works of Martin Gardner will live.
I am still working on your counter-example to the four color theorem. http://www.flickr.com/photos/49058045@N00/3890000596/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener" is available at (where else?) Amazon.com. Kudos to Mr. Yam and posthumously to the great Mr. Gardner.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Christian friction" -- you might mean "Christian fiction", or I might have missed the friction section in the book store all these years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am so sorry to hear of Mr Gardner's passing. I have read his columns in Scientific American for decades, and while I could not solve all the problems, delighted in reading them, his books as well. His style was so clear. Years ago, when his output had reduced, he still contributed an occasional puzzle to Marilyn Vos Savant's weekly puzzle column in Parade magazine. Ms Vos Savant in return would pay a glowing compliment for his attention to her column. It was always touching to see the interaction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe set a very high example in expository writing. I often think of his style.
How many readers used to get Scientific American magazine, skim the cover and then dive into the back to find what Martin Gardner was up to this month? He oftentimes would end his article with a few problems for the reader to solve, assuring that it would be easy given the preceding solved problems and examples. This often illustrated the hyperbolic difficulty curve of solving the last problems with just a few more factors added. The next month the letters to the editor would often necessitate Martin Gardner to divulge the answer and show how to solve it, and he would always give credit to readers who wrote in with both the correct answer and innovative alternative solutions. It was amazing how much he made the readers think and have a good time doing it.
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