4 responses to “Martin Gardner, RIP”

1. 

   Marty May 24th, 2010 at 01:22

   Yes, Gardner was great, a true polymath. I fondly remember his book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science — it was a classic.

2. 

   David Weinraub May 28th, 2010 at 19:51

   Man, that’s a bummer.

   Martin Gardner’s column was the first exposure I had to the notion that some infinities are “larger” than others, the Continuum Hypothesis, and Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem. Those ideas were so exciting to me that I can honestly point to Gardner’s writings as of the most significant factors that ultimately led me to pursue graduate study in mathematics.

   Very sorry to hear he has passed away.

3. Martin Gardner and me | PapayaSoft May 29th, 2010 at 10:39

   [...] just read on AskWoody.com that Martin Gardner, the longtime author of the Scientific American column “Mathematical [...]

4. 

   sethness May 30th, 2010 at 06:17

   He was a living legend, as ubiquitous for math geeks as Santa is for little kids. He was required reading for math geeks everywhere, as proof of geekiness.

   I was reading his page in Dad’s magazines back when slide rules were still in fashion. Now that I’m an adult, I’m still finding fascinating things in papers he wrote decades ago… like hexaflexagons, and how I might use’em in tessellations. (I run http://www.Tessellations.org, dedicated to tessellations from the artistic perspective.)

   Just closing my eyes and thinking about Martin Gardner brings back all those childhood summer afternoons and the cloud of happiness that comes from the smell of magazine ink.

   Damnit, some people shouldn’t be allowed to die. Did anyone at least try to talk him out of it?