Bøger af Martin Gardner

Why do card tricks work? How can magicians do astonishing feats of mathematics mentally? Why do stage "mind-reading" tricks work? As a rule, we simply accept these tricks and "magic" without recognizing that they are really demonstrations of strict laws based on probability, sets, number theory, topology, and other branches of mathematics.This is the first book-length study of this fascinating branch of recreational mathematics. Written by one of the foremost experts on mathematical magic, it employs considerable historical data to summarize all previous work in this field. It is also a creative examination of laws and their exemplification, with scores of new tricks, insights, and demonstrations. Dozens of topological tricks are explained, and dozens of manipulation tricks are aligned with mathematical law.Nontechnical, detailed, and clear, this volume contains 115 sections discussing tricks with cards, dice, coins, etc.; topological tricks with handkerchiefs, cards, etc.; geometrical vanishing effects; demonstrations with pure numbers; and dozens of other topics. You will learn how a Moebius strip works and how a Curry square can "prove" that the whole is not equal to the sum of its parts.No skill at sleight of hand is needed to perform the more than 500 tricks described because mathematics guarantees their success. Detailed examination of laws and their application permits you to create your own problems and effects.

The noted expert selects 70 of his favorite "short" puzzles. Includes The Returning Explorer, The Mutilated Chessboard, Scrambled Box Tops, and dozens more. Complete solutions included.

Here is Martin Gardner's first collection of short stories. Culled from fiction written over the years for such magazines as Esquire and the London Mystery Magazine, The No-Sided Professor is proof that Gardner's expertise does not stop at his scientific and mathematical works. Only Gardner can infuse short stories with the same masterful charm, wit, and philosophical brio that have brought him legions of fans through his mathematical-puzzle books and investigations into science and pseudoscience.Gardner introduces us to the "No-Sided Professor," Dr. Stanislaw Slapenarski, who by means of a kind of mathematical yoga blips himself and his nemesis into another dimension. In "At the Feet of Karl Klodhopper," Gardner tells an engrossing story of lust and murder in the art world. These and other stories reveal Gardner's astonishingly wide range of intellectual insight and cultural acumen.The No-Sided Professor is full of tales of fantasy, humor, the bohemian life, topological wizardry, and mystery. All are stamped with the unmistakable seal of a master storyteller.

More than any of his other writing, Martin Gardner's Mathematical Recreations column in Scientific American cemented his reputation as America's premier writer on recreational mathematics and set the standard for the genre. The Last Recreations collects Gardner's columns from the last seven years before his retirement from the magazine in 1986.

Der Begriff des Spieles, der die Unterhaltungs mathematik erst unter- haltsam gestaltet, auert sich in vielen Formen: ein Ratsel, das gelost werden soll, ein Zweipersonenspiel, ein magischer Trick, ein Paradoxon, Trugschlusse oder ganz einfach Mathematik mit uberraschenden und amusanten Beigaben. Gehoren diese Beispiele nun zur reinen oder ange- wandten Mathematik? Es ist schwer zu sagen. Einerseits ist Unterhal- tungsmathematik reine Mathematik, unbeeinflut von der Frage nach den Anwendungsmoglichkeiten. Andererseits ist sie aber auch ange- wandte Mathematik, denn sie entstand aus dem allgemeinen menschli- chen Hang zum Spiel. Vielleicht steht dieser Hang zum Spiel aber auch hinter der reinen Mathe- matik. Besteht doch kein wesentlicher Unterschied zwischen dem Triumph eines Laien, der eine "e;harte Nu geknackt hat"e; und der Befriedigung, die ein Mathematiker empfindet, wenn er ein hoheres Problem gelost hat. Beide blicken auf die reine Schonheit - diese klare, exakt definiert, geheimnisvolle und uberwaltigende Ordnung, die jeder Struktur zugrunde liegt. Es ist daher nicht verwunderlich, da es oft auerst schwierig ist, die reine Mathematik von der Unterhaltungsmathematik zu unter- scheiden. Das VierfarbenproblemI) beispielsweise ist ein wichtiges bisher ungelos- tes Problem der Topologie und doch findet man Diskussionen uber dieses Problem in vielen unterhaltungsmathematischen Buchern.

How much mathematical knowledge can be stored inside a cube? Can we get an artistic work from any cube? Many researchers throughout history have been eagerly trying to find out. That mystery hides another mystery directly related to mathematics and the art of construction. We refer to the so-called golden number, section or golden ratio. Thanks to Doctor Matrix you will learn that from any two cubes it is possible to create a scale model of the Great Pyramid. It's amazing what can be salvaged from the seemingly dry mathematical science when a writer of the stature of Gardner motivates you to make works of art or teaches you how to cut three identical warped pyramids out of a simple cube. In this volume, the great popularizer creatively covers many other aspects of mathematics, such as Wizard's alphabetic symmetry (referring to The Wizard of Oz) or Alan Wayne's arithmetic cryptograms. Your reading will forever change the reserved attitude that we generally show towards this discipline.

Of all of Martin Gardner's writings, none gained him a wider audience or was more central to his reputation than his Mathematical Recreations column in "Scientific American", which virtually defined the genre of popular mathematics writing for a generation. Flatland, Hydras and Eggs: Mathematical Mystifications will be the final collection of these columns, covering a period roughly from 1979 to Gardner's retirement as a regular columnist in 1986. The notable trend over Gardner's career is the increasing sophistication of the mathematics he has been able to translate into his famously lucid prose. These columns show him at the top of his form and are not to be missed by anyone with an interest in mathematics. As always in his published collections, Gardner includes letters received from mathematicians and other commenting on the ideas presented in the columns.

A longtime admirer of well crafted prose, word puzzles and clever turns of phrase, Gardner assembles his favorite examples of the lighter side of poetry. Illustrations.

Plants from the Woods and Forests of Chile is a high-quality botanical art book depicting the rich diversity and beauty of Chile's unique forested areas where for the last 25 years the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh has engaged in collaborative research and conservation initiatives.

This beautifully designed model account includes important new information which will not only be of great interest to botanists, conservationist and horticulturists but also to local people who are dependent on the diminishing natural habitats in central and southern Chile.

This book presents a collection of problems and puzzles, and provides the tools and projects to furnish all-too-sluggish minds with an athletic workout and which foster an agility of the mind as they entertain. It is dedicated to all the underpaid teachers of mathematics everywhere.

Martin Gardner's aha! Gotcha and aha! Insight combined: 144 wonderful puzzles from the reigning king of recreational mathematics.

Best known as the longtime writer of the Mathematical Games column for Scientific American-which introduced generations of readers to the joys of recreational mathematics-Martin Gardner has for decades pursued a parallel career as a devastatingly effective debunker of what he once famously dubbed "fads and fallacies in the name of science." It is mainly in this latter role that he is onstage in this collection of choice essays.When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish takes aim at a gallery of amusing targets, ranging from Ann Coulter's qualifications as an evolutionary biologist to the logical fallacies of precognition and extrasensory perception, from Santa Claus to The Wizard of Oz, from mutilated chessboards to the little-known "one-poem poet" Langdon Smith (the original author of this volume's title line). The writings assembled here fall naturally into seven broad categories: Science, Bogus Science, Mathematics, Logic, Literature, Religion and Philosophy, and Politics. Under each heading, Gardner displays an awesome level of erudition combined with a wicked sense of humor.

The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener showcases Martin Gardner as the consummate philosopher, thinker, and great mathematician that he is. Exploring issues that range from faith to prayer to evil to immortality, and far beyond, Garnder challenges the discerning reader with fundamental questions of classical philosophy and life's greater meanings.Recalling such philosophers was Wittgenstein and Arendt, The Whys of Philosophical Scrivener embodies Martin Garner's unceasing interest and joy in the impenetrable mysteries of life.

Martin Gardner, the "Mathematical Games" columnist for Scientific American from 1956 to 1981, was also a philosopher, polymath, magician, religious thinker, and the author of more than 70 books, including The Annotated Alice, The Ambidextrous Universe, and Visitors from Oz. Here his life and works are celebrated in a bouquet of essays about him or in his honor.Introduced by his son Jim, the book includes reminiscences by Douglas Hofstadter, Morton N. Cohen, Scott Kim, David Singmaster, Michael Patrick Hearn, and many others; a festschrift contains essays by such writers as Raymond Smullyan and Robin Wilson. This volume also contains the final annotations Gardner made to the Alice books post-"Definitive Edition,"and a definitive bibliography of his Carroll-related writings.While put together under the aegis of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, it takes a far broader look at this remarkable man and his many interests and accomplishments.

The autobiography of the beloved writer who inspired a generation to study math and scienceMartin Gardner wrote the Mathematical Games column for Scientific American for twenty-five years and published more than seventy books on topics as diverse as magic, religion, and Alice in Wonderland. Gardner's illuminating autobiography is a candid self-portrait by the man evolutionary theorist Stephen Jay Gould called our "e;single brightest beacon"e; for the defense of rationality and good science against mysticism and anti-intellectualism.Gardner takes readers from his childhood in Oklahoma to his varied and wide-ranging professional pursuits. He shares colorful anecdotes about the many fascinating people he met and mentored, and voices strong opinions on the subjects that matter to him most, from his love of mathematics to his uncompromising stance against pseudoscience. For Gardner, our mathematically structured universe is undiluted hocus-pocus-a marvelous enigma, in other words.Undiluted Hocus-Pocus offers a rare, intimate look at Gardner's life and work, and the experiences that shaped both.

"[Gardner] zaps his targets with laserlike precision and wit."-Entertainment Weekly