Martin Gardner, RIP

from City Journal:

The first time I encountered a column in Scientific American entitled “Mathematical Games,” I thought it was a contradiction in terms. Along with most English majors, I equated math with drudgery, not diversion. Then I read the piece. Its author, Martin Gardner, showed me how wrong I was. Over the years, he also showed me (and a few million others) how to understand topics that ranged from the left-handedness of molecules to the devious origins of Scientology to the secrets of sleight-of-hand artists to the in-jokes of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. So it came as no surprise that when Gardner died last week at 95, he was mourned not only by mathematicians and physicists but by magicians, literary scholars, theologians, crossword-puzzle fans, writers, and editors. Indeed, the author of some 80 books was a classic example of the polymath (according to Webster’s: “From the Greek polymathēs, ‘having learned much’; a person, with superior intelligence, whose expertise spans a significant number of subject areas”).
The son of an Oklahoma-based oil prospector, Gardner gave no hint of what was to come when he attended local schools in Tulsa. He went on to the University of Chicago, majoring in philosophy and attending a wide variety of courses—but not a single one in math. “Beyond calculus,” he was to confess, “I am lost. The only way I could comprehend higher mathematics was to make a game of it.” Gamesmanship became an integral part of his long life—and perhaps the most important part.
“Sometimes I think it would be nice to grow up,” he liked to say well into his 90s. “Other times I think, ‘Why bother?’”

The Mathemagician

Martin Gardner, R.I.P.

Stefan Kanfer
City Journal
27 May 2010