# Mathematician:Martin Gardner

## Mathematician

American mathematician and magician best known for the books he wrote (of which there were many) popularizing mathematics and science.

Author of the Mathematical Games column in Scientific American between 1956 and 1981. This position was taken over by Douglas R. Hofstadter.

Also contributed a series of "puzzle page" articles for Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine in the late 1970's to early 1980's.

Also wrote a column called Notes of a Fringe Watcher (originally Notes of a Psi-Watcher) from 1983 to 2002 for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry's periodical Skeptical Inquirer.

American

## History

• Born: 21 Oct 1914, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
• Died: 22 May 2010, Norman, Oklahoma, USA

## Notable Quotes

Biographical history, as taught in our public schools, is still largely a history of boneheads: ridiculous kings and queens, paranoid political leaders, compulsive voyagers, ignorant generals -- the flotsam and jetsam of historical currents. The men who radically altered history, the great creative scientists and mathematicians, are seldom mentioned if at all.
-- Epigraph to Part $\text A$ of 1992: George F. Simmons: Calculus Gems