Books by Martin Gardner
The Colossal Book of Mathematics: Classic Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problems
No amateur or math authority can be without this ultimate compendium from America's best-loved mathematical expert. Whether discussing hexaflexagons or number theory, Klein bottles or the essence of "nothing," Martin Gardner has single-handedly created the field of "recreational mathematics." The Colossal Book of Mathematics collects together Gardner's most popular pieces from his legendary "Mathematical Games" column, which ran in Scientific American for twenty-five years. Gardner's array of absorbing puzzles and mind-twisting paradoxes opens mathematics up to the world at large, inspiring people to see past numbers and formulas and experience the application of mathematical principles to the mysterious world around them. With articles on topics ranging from simple algebra to the twisting surfaces of Mobius strips, from an endless game of Bulgarian solitaire to the unreachable dream of time travel, this volume comprises a substantial and definitive monument to Gardner's influence on mathematics, science, and culture.
In its twelve sections, The Colossal Book of Math explores a wide range of areas, each startlingly illuminated by Gardner's incisive expertise. Beginning with seemingly simple topics, Gardner expertly guides us through complicated and wondrous worlds: by way of basic algebra we contemplate the mesmerizing, often hilarious, linguistic and numerical possibilities of palindromes; using simple geometry, he dissects the principles of symmetry upon which the renowned mathematical artist M. C. Escher constructs his unique, dizzying universe. Gardner, like few thinkers today, melds a rigorous scientific skepticism with a profound artistic and imaginative impulse. His stunning exploration of "The Church of the Fourth Dimension," for example, bridges the disparate worlds of religion and science by brilliantly imagining the spatial possibility of God's presence in the world as a fourth dimension, at once "everywhere and nowhere."
With boundless wisdom and his trademark wit, Gardner allows the reader to further engage challenging topics like probability and game theory which have plagued clever gamblers, and famous mathematicians, for centuries. Whether debunking Pascal's wager with basic probability, making visual music with fractals, or uncoiling a "knotted doughnut" with introductory topology, Gardner continuously displays his fierce intelligence and gentle humor. His articles confront both the comfortingly mundane―"Generalized Ticktacktoe" and "Sprouts and Brussel Sprouts"―and the quakingly abstract―"Hexaflexagons," "Nothing," and "Everything." He navigates these staggeringly obscure topics with a deft intelligence and, with addendums and suggested reading lists, he informs these classic articles with new insight.
Admired by scientists and mathematicians, writers and readers alike, Gardner's vast knowledge and burning curiosity reveal themselves on every page. The culmination of a lifelong devotion to the wonders of mathematics, The Colossal Book of Mathematics is the largest and most comprehensive math book ever assembled by Gardner and remains an indispensable volume for the amateur and expert alike.
Copies
No copies available.
The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles and Problems
Finally collected in one volume, Martin Gardner's immensely popular short puzzles; along with a few new ones from the master. For more than twenty-five years, Martin Gardner was Scientific American's renowned provocateur of popular math. His yearly gatherings of short and inventive problems were easily his most anticipated math columns. Loyal readers would savor the wit and elegance of his explorations in physics, probability, topology, and chess, among others. Grouped by subject and arrayed from easiest to hardest, the puzzles gathered here, which complement the lengthier, more involved problems in The Colossal Book of Mathematics, have been selected by Gardner for their illuminating; and often bewildering; solutions. Filled with over 300 illustrations, this new volume even contains nine new mathematical gems that Gardner, now ninety, has been gathering for the last decade. No amateur or expert math lover should be without this indispensable volume; a capstone to Gardner's seventy-year career. 308 illustrations
Copies
No copies available.
Hexaflexagons, Probability Paradoxes, and the Tower of Hanoi: Martin Gardner's First Book of Mathematical Puzzles and Games (The New Martin Gardner Mathematical Library, Series Number 1)
Hexaflexagons, Probability Paradoxes, and the Tower of Hanoi is the inaugural volume in The New Martin Gardner Mathematical Library series. Based off of Gardener's enormously popular Scientific American columns, his puzzles and challenges can now fascinate a whole new generation! Paradoxes and paper-folding, Moebius variations and mnemonics, fallacies, magic square, topological curiosities, parlor tricks, and games ancient and modern, from Polyminoes, Nim, Hex, and the Tower of Hanoi to four-dimensional ticktacktoe. These mathematical recreations, clearly and cleverly presented by Martin Gardner, delight and perplex while demonstrating principles of logic, probability, geometry, and other fields of mathematics. Now the author, in consultation with experts, has added updates to all the chapters, including new game variations, mathematical proofs, and other developments and discoveries.
Copies
No copies available.
Undiluted Hocus-Pocus: The Autobiography of Martin Gardner
Martin 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, philosophy, religion, pseudoscience and Alice in Wonderland. His informal, recreational approach to mathematics delighted countless readers and inspired many to pursue careers in mathematics and the sciences. Gardner's illuminating autobiography is a disarmingly candid self-portrait of the man evolutionary theorist Stephen Jay Gould called our "single brightest beacon " for the defense of rationality and good science against mysticism and anti-intellectualism. Gardner takes readers from his childhood in Oklahoma to his college days at the University of Chicago, his service in the navy and his varied and wide-ranging professional pursuits. Before becoming a columnist for Scientific American, he was a caseworker in Chicago during the Great Depression, a reporter for the Tulsa Tribune, an editor for Humpty Dumpty and a short-story writer for Esquire, among other jobs. Gardner 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. .
Copies
No copies available.
Undiluted Hocus-Pocus: The Autobiography of Martin Gardner
The autobiography of the beloved writer who inspired a generation to study math and science
Martin 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 "single brightest beacon" 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.
Copies
No copies available.
Scientific American: Mathematical Games Knowledge Cards Deck
by Scientific American, Martin Gardner
There is order in the mathematical universe, but it can be hard to find. The orderly solutions to these abstruse, obscure, arcane, and delightful hairpullers run and hide in the bushes like rodents of the rainforest. Martin Gardner is one of the world's preeminent creators of puzzles and the author of many books, including The Colossal Book of Mathematics (W.W. Norton, 2001) and Gardner's Workout: Training the Mind and Entertaining the Spirit (A.K. Peters Ltd., 2001). Adapted from Martin Gardner's column in Scientific American.
With questions on one side and answers on the other, these 48 fact-filled Knowledge Cards are a great source of condensed information all in a deck the size of a pack of playing cards! Perfect for students, teachers, science buffs, and the purely inquisitive, this deck is sure to spark your curiosity and encourage you to delve deeper into this fascinating subject.
Size: 3 1/4 x 4 inches.
Copies
No copies available.
Famous Poems from Bygone Days (Dover Books on Literature and Drama)
Over 80 poems from the 19th and early 20th centuries, from Hugh Antoine d'Arcy's "The Face on the Barroom Floor" to Phila Henrietta Chase's "Nobody’s Child," rich in rhythm and rhyme, filled with feelings and stories about love and war, ships and the sea, farms and family, life and death, heaven and hell. Introduction. Brief biographies of each poet. Alphabetical indexes of titles and first lines.
Copies
No copies available.
Sphere Packing, Lewis Carroll and Reversi (New Martin Gardner Mathematical Library)
Packing spheres, Reversi, braids, polyominoes, board games, and the puzzles of Lewis Carroll. These and other mathematical diversions return to readers with updates to all the chapters, including new game variations, mathematical proofs, and other developments and discoveries. Read about Knuth’s Word Ladders program and the latest developments in the digits of pi. Once again these timeless puzzles will charm readers while demonstrating principles of logic, probability, geometry, and other fields of mathematics.
Copies
No copies available.
Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (Popular Science)
"Although we are amused, we may also be embarrassed to find our friends or even ourselves among the gullible advocates of plausible-sounding doubletalk." — Saturday Review
"A very able and even-tempered presentation." — New Yorker
This witty and engaging book examines the various fads, fallacies, strange cults, and curious panaceas which at one time or another have masqueraded as science. Not just a collection of anecdotes but a fair, reasoned appraisal of eccentric theory, it is unique in recognizing the scientific, philosophic, and sociological-psychological implications of the wave of pseudoscientific theories which periodically besets the world.
To this second revised edition of a work formerly titled In the Name of Science, Martin Gardner has added new, up-to-date material to an already impressive account of hundreds of systematized vagaries. Here you will find discussions of hollow-earth fanatics like Symmes; Velikovsky and wandering planets; Hörbiger, Bellamy, and the theory of multiple moons; Charles Fort and the Fortean Society; dowsing and the other strange methods for finding water, ores, and oil. Also covered are such topics as naturopathy, iridiagnosis, zone therapy, food fads; Wilhelm Reich and orgone sex energy; L. Ron Hubbard and Dianetics; A. Korzybski and General Semantics. A new examination of Bridey Murphy is included in this edition, along with a new section on bibliographic reference material.
Copies
No copies available.
Knots and Borromean Rings, Rep-Tiles, and Eight Queens: Martin Gardner's Unexpected Hanging (The New Martin Gardner Mathematical Library, Series Number 4)
The hangman’s paradox, cat’s cradle, gambling, peg solitaire, pi and e. All these and more are back, in Martin Gardner’s inimitable style, with updates on new developments and discoveries. Read about how knots and molecules are related, take a trip into the fourth dimension, try out new dissections of stars, crosses and polygons, and challenge yourself with new twists on classic games.
Copies
No copies available.
Barack Obama Coloring Book
by Martin Gardner, Gary Zaboly
An engaging portrait of America's forty-fourth president, this collection of thirty handsome illustrations and informative captions marks significant events in Obama's life. Learn about his experience his childhood in Hawaii, his education through Harvard Law School, marriage to Michelle, the birth of his children, Malia and Sasha, his nomination at the Democratic convention, and his historic victory as the first African-American president of the United States. A thoroughly entertaining and educational choice for colorists of every age!
Copies
No copies available.