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{{Short description|American mathematics and science writer (1914–2010)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2023}} {{Use American English|date=October 2023}}
{{Infobox writer
 | name         = Martin Gardner
 | image        = Martin Gardner.jpeg
 | birth_date   = {{Birth date|1914|10|21|mf=yes}}
 | birth_place  = [[Tulsa, Oklahoma]], U.S.
 | death_date   = {{Death date and age|mf=yes|2010|05|22|1914|10|21}}
 | death_place  = [[Norman, Oklahoma]], U.S.
 | occupation   = Author
 | spouse       = {{marriage|Charlotte Greenwald|1952}}
 | children     = 2
 | alma_mater   = [[University of Chicago]]
 | genre        = [[Recreational mathematics]], [[puzzles]], [[close-up magic]], [[Annotated edition|annotated literary works]], [[debunking]]
 | movement     = [[Scientific skepticism]]
 | notableworks = ''[[Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science]]'', "[[Mathematical Games (column)|Mathematical Games]]" (''[[Scientific American]]'' column), ''[[The Annotated Alice]]'', ''The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener'', ''[[The Ambidextrous Universe]]''
 | awards       = [[Leroy P. Steele Prize|Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition]] (1987)<ref name=allyn_jackson/><br>[[George Pólya Award]] (1999)<ref>{{cite journal |date=November 2000 |title=MAA Writing Awards Presented |journal=Notices of the AMS |volume=47 |issue=10 |page=1282 |url=https://www.ams.org/notices/200010/people.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140712030543/http://www.ams.org/notices/200010/people.pdf |archive-date=2014-07-12 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Gardner |first=Martin |date=January 1999 |title=The Asymmetric Propeller |journal=The College Mathematics Journal |doi=10.2307/2687198 |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=18–22 |jstor=2687198 |url=https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/upload_library/22/Polya/07468342.di020785.02p0455x.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140304013408/https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/upload_library/22/Polya/07468342.di020785.02p0455x.pdf |archive-date=2014-03-04 }}</ref><br>[[Allendoerfer Award]] (1990)<br>[[Trevor Evans Award]] (1998)
 | signature    = Martin Gardner Signature.png
}}

'''Martin Gardner''' (October 21, 1914{{spaced ndash}}May 22, 2010) was an American [[popular mathematics]] and [[popular science]] writer with interests also encompassing [[Magic (illusion)|magic]], [[scientific skepticism]], [[Close-up magic|micromagic]], [[philosophy]], [[religion]], and [[literature]]{{snd}}especially the writings of [[Lewis Carroll]], [[L. Frank Baum]], and [[G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton]].<ref name=douglas_martin>Martin (2010)</ref><ref>Singmaster, D. (2010) "Obituary: Martin Gardner (1914–2010)" ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' '''465'''(7300), 884.</ref> He was a leading authority on Lewis Carroll;<ref>Kindley (2015): When it comes to explanations of Carroll’s books, no one has yet improved on the work of Gardner.</ref> ''[[The Annotated Alice]]'', which incorporated the text of Carroll's two Alice books, was his most successful work and sold over a million copies.<ref name=telegraph>[https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Obituaries/Gardner_Telegraph/ Martin Gardner obituary] [[Telegraph Media Group]] (2010)</ref> He had a lifelong interest in magic and illusion and in 1999, ''MAGIC'' magazine named him as one of the "100 Most Influential Magicians of the Twentieth Century".<ref name=magic/> He was considered the doyen of American puzzlers.<ref>Costello (1988):  p. 114.</ref> He was a prolific and versatile author, publishing more than 100 books.<ref>England (2014):  Even apart from mathematics and puzzles, Gardner's output was staggering.</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20221020013940/https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-xpm-2010-may-26-la-me-martin-gardner-20100526-story.html "Martin Gardner dies at 95; prolific mathematics columnist for Scientific American"] by Thomas H. Maugh, Los Angeles Times, May 26, 2010</ref>

Gardner was best known for creating and sustaining interest in [[recreational mathematics]]—and by extension, mathematics in general—throughout the latter half of the 20th century, principally through his "Mathematical Games" columns.<ref>AMS Notices (2011): "Martin Gardner was a gem. There is absolutely no question that he, more than anyone else in the world, was responsible for turning people of all ages on to the pleasures of mathematical recreations." —Ronald L. Graham</ref><ref>Case 2014: Gardner is credited with the rebirth of recreational mathematics in the U.S.</ref> These appeared for twenty-five years in ''[[Scientific American]]'', and his subsequent books collecting them.<ref>Martin (2010): "His mathematical writings intrigued a generation of mathematicians."</ref><ref>Bellos (2010): "He became a kind of father figure to a generation of young mathematicians, who corresponded with him. Such was Gardner's influence between the late 1950s and 1980s that it would be hard to find a professional mathematician from those years who does not cite him as an inspiration."</ref>

Gardner was one of the foremost anti-[[pseudoscience]] polemicists of the 20th century.<ref>{{cite web |date=2014 |title=Martin Gardner{{snd}}Mathematician |website=Martin Gardner Home Site |publisher=[[Gathering 4 Gardner]] |url=http://martin-gardner.org/MATHEMATICIAN.html |access-date=October 28, 2016 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161118142607/http://martin-gardner.org/MATHEMATICIAN.html |archive-date=November 18, 2016 }}</ref> His 1957 book ''[[Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science]]''<ref>originally published in 1952 as ''In the Name of Science: An Entertaining Survey of the High Priests and Cultists of Science, Past and Present''</ref> is a seminal work of the skeptical movement.<ref>{{cite book |last=Shermer |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Shermer |year=2001 |title=The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/borderlandsofsci00mic_hoo/page/50 50] |url=https://archive.org/details/borderlandsofsci00mic_hoo |url-access=registration |access-date=May 20, 2016|quote=''Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science'' [is] still in print and arguably ''the'' skeptic classic of the past half-century.}}</ref> In 1976, he joined with fellow skeptics to found [[CSICOP]], an organization promoting scientific inquiry and the use of reason in examining extraordinary claims.<ref>{{cite web |title=About CSI |website=Committee for Skeptical Inquiry |url=http://www.csicop.org/about/about_csi |access-date=2016-10-28 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161112121924/http://www.csicop.org/about/about_csi |archive-date=2016-11-12 }}</ref>

==Biography==

===Youth and education===
Martin Gardner was born into a prosperous family in [[Tulsa, Oklahoma]], to James Henry Gardner, a [[petroleum geologist]],<ref>James Gardner later became the 8th President of the [[American Association of Petroleum Geologists]].</ref> and his wife, Willie Wilkerson Spiers, a [[Montessori education|Montessori-trained]] teacher.  His mother taught Martin to read before he started school, reading him ''[[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz|The Wizard of Oz]]'', and this began a lifelong interest in the [[Oz books]] of [[L.&nbsp;Frank Baum]].<ref name=fame/><ref name=England_2014/>  His fascination with mathematics started in his boyhood when his father gave him a copy of [[Sam Loyd]]'s ''Cyclopedia of 5000 Puzzles, Tricks and Conundrums''.<ref>Suzuki (1996) at 17:20</ref><ref>MacTutor</ref>

[[File:Martin Gardner HS Yearbook.jpeg|thumb|Gardner as a high school senior, 1932]]
He attended the [[University of Chicago]] where he studied history, literature and sciences under their intellectually-stimulating Great Books curriculum and earned his bachelor's degree in [[philosophy]] in 1936.<ref name=telegraph/> Early jobs included reporter on the ''[[Tulsa Tribune]]'', writer at the University of Chicago Office of Press Relations, and case worker in [[Black Belt (region of Chicago)|Chicago's Black Belt]] for the city's Relief Administration. During [[World War II]], he served for four years in the U.S. Navy as a [[Yeoman (US Navy)|yeoman]] on board the destroyer escort [[USS Pope (DE-134)|USS ''Pope'']] in the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic]]. His ship was still in the Atlantic when the war came to an end with the [[surrender of Japan]] in August 1945.

After the war, Gardner returned to the University of Chicago.<ref name=Shermer_1997>Shermer (1997)</ref> He attended graduate school for a year there, but he did not earn an advanced degree.<ref name=allyn_jackson/>

===Early career===
In the late 1940s, Gardner moved to New York City and became a writer and editor at ''[[Humpty Dumpty Magazine|Humpty Dumpty]]'' magazine, where for eight years, he wrote features and stories for it and several other children's magazines.<ref>Yam, Philip (December 1995) [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/profile-of-martin-gardner/ Profile: Martin Gardner, the Mathematical Gamester (1914–2010)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180511082616/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/profile-of-martin-gardner/ |date=2018-05-11 }} Scientific American</ref> His paper-folding puzzles at that magazine led to his first work at ''Scientific American.''<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gardner |first1=Martin |last2=Berlekamp |first2=Elwyn R. |last3=Rodgers |first3=Tom |year=1999 |title=The mathemagician and pied puzzler: a collection in tribute to Martin Gardner |publisher=A K Peters, Ltd. |isbn=978-1-56881-075-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9GvNAjykUqQC&pg=PA3}}</ref> For many decades, Gardner, his wife Charlotte, and their two sons, Jim and Tom, lived in [[Hastings-on-Hudson, New York]], where he earned his living as a freelance author, publishing books with several different publishers, and also publishing hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles.<ref name=martin_gardner_2013>Gardner, Martin (2013)</ref>

===Middle age===
In 1950, he wrote an article in the ''[[Antioch Review]]'' entitled "The Hermit Scientist".<ref>Gardner, Martin, "The Hermit Scientist", ''[[Antioch Review]]'', Winter 1950–1951, pp. 447–457.</ref>  It was one of Gardner's earliest articles about [[junk science]], and in 1952 a much-expanded version became his first published book: ''In the Name of Science: An Entertaining Survey of the High Priests and Cultists of Science, Past and Present''. The year 1960 saw the original edition of the best-selling book of his career, ''The Annotated Alice''.<ref name=Burstein_2011>Burstein (2011)</ref>

In 1957 Gardner started writing a column for ''Scientific American'' called "Mathematical Games".  It ran for over a quarter century and dealt with the subject of [[recreational mathematics]]. The "Mathematical Games" column became the most popular feature of the magazine and was the first thing that many readers turned to.<ref>Hofstadter (2010): There were thousands of such people spread all around the world{{snd}}mathematicians, physicists, philosophers, computer scientists, and on and on{{snd}}who thought of Martin Gardner's column not as merely a feature of that great magazine ''Scientific American'', but as its very heart and soul.</ref> In September 1977 ''Scientific American'' acknowledged the prestige and popularity of Gardner's column by moving it from the back to the very front of the magazine.<ref>Demaine (2008): p. 24</ref>

===Retirement and death===
In 1979, Gardner left ''Scientific American''. He and his wife Charlotte moved to [[Hendersonville, North Carolina]]. He continued to write math articles, sending them to ''[[The Mathematical Intelligencer]]'', ''[[Math Horizons]]'', ''[[The College Mathematics Journal]]'', and ''Scientific American''. He also revised some of his older books such as ''Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube''.<ref name=dana_richards>Richards (2014)</ref> Charlotte died in 2000 and in 2004 Gardner returned to Oklahoma,<ref>Albers (2008)</ref> where his son, James Gardner, was a professor of education at the [[University of Oklahoma]]<ref name=allyn_jackson/> in [[Norman, Oklahoma|Norman]]. He died there on May 22, 2010.<ref name=douglas_martin/> An autobiography{{snd}}''Undiluted Hocus-Pocus: The Autobiography of Martin Gardner''{{snd}}was published posthumously.<ref name=martin_gardner_2013/>

==Mathematical Games column==
{{quote box
|quote= I just play all the time and am fortunate enough to get paid for it.
|source= – Martin Gardner, 1998
|align = right
|width = 33%
}}
{{Further|List of Martin Gardner Mathematical Games columns}}
[[File:All 35 free hexominoes.svg|thumb|376px|Solomon Golomb's Polyominoes were among the many recreational mathematics topics featured by Gardner in his column. The 35 [[hexominoes]] are depicted.]]

The "Mathematical Games" column began with a free-standing article on [[hexaflexagon]]s which ran in the December 1956 issue of ''Scientific American''.<ref name=Mulcahy_2014>Mulcahy (2014)</ref><ref name=the_economist_2010>The Economist (2010)</ref> [[Flexagon]]s became a bit of a fad and soon people all over New York City were making them. Gerry Piel, the ''SA'' publisher at the time, asked Gardner, "Is there enough similar material to this to make a regular feature?" Gardner said he thought so. The January 1957 issue contained his first column, entitled "Mathematical Games".<ref name=martin_gardner_2013/> Almost 300 more columns were to follow.<ref name=allyn_jackson>AMS Notices (2004)</ref>

It ran from 1956 to 1981 with sporadic columns afterwards and was the first introduction of many subjects to a wider audience, notably:<ref>Adamatzky, A. (Ed.) (2010). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=5iz6C0zzWKcC&q=could+not+believe+the+amount&pg=PR7 Game of Life Cellular Automata]'' ebook, {{isbn|1849962170}}. pp. 15–16, Conway came to New York to meet with Gardner [and] could not believe the amount of interest Gardner's columns on the game of Life had generated.</ref>
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
* [[Flexagon]]s (Dec 1956)
* The Game of [[Hex (board game)|Hex]] (Jul 1957)
* The [[Soma cube]] (Sep 1958)
* [[Squaring the square]] (Nov 1958)
* The [[Three Prisoners problem]] (Oct 1959)
* [[Polyominoes]] (Nov 1960)
* The [[Unexpected hanging paradox|Paradox of the unexpected hanging]] (Mar 1963)
* [[Rep-tiles]] (May 1963)
* The [[Superellipse]] (Sep 1965)
* [[Pentominoes]] (Oct 1965)
* The mathematical art of [[M. C. Escher]]  (Apr 1966)
* [[Fractals]] and the Koch snowflake curve (Mar 1967)
* [[Conway's Game of Life]] (Oct 1970)
* [[Intransitive dice]] (Dec 1970)
* [[Newcomb's paradox]]  (Jul 1973)
* [[Tangrams]] (Aug 1974)
* [[Penrose tiling]]s (Jan 1977)
* [[RSA (cryptosystem)|Public-key cryptography]] (Aug 1977)
* [[Douglas R Hofstadter|Hofstadter]]'s ''[[Godel, Escher, Bach]]'' (Jul 1979)
* The [[Monster group]] (Jun 1980)
{{div col end}}

Gardner had problems learning [[calculus]] and never took a mathematics course after high school. While editing ''[[Humpty Dumpty (magazine)|Humpty Dumpty Magazine]]'' he constructed many paper folding puzzles. At a magic show in 1956 fellow magician [[Royal Vale Heath]] introduced Gardner to the intricately folded paper shapes known as flexagons and steered him to the four Princeton University professors who had invented and investigated their mathematical properties.   The subsequent article Gardner wrote on hexaflexagons led directly to the column.<ref name=martin_gardner_2013/>

Gardner's son Jim once asked him what was his favorite puzzle, and Gardner answered almost immediately: "[[The monkey and the coconuts]]".<ref>Antonick, Gary (2013). ''[https://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/07/gardner-2/ Martin Gardner’s The Monkey and the Coconuts]'' in Numberplay The ''New York Times'':, October 7, 2013</ref> It had been the subject of his April 1958 Games column and in 2001 he chose to make it the first chapter of his "best of" collection, ''The Colossal Book of Mathematics''.<ref>Gardner, Martin ''The Colossal Book of Mathematics: Classic Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problems'' (2001), W.W. Norton & Company; {{ISBN|0-393-02023-1}}</ref>

In the 1980s "Mathematical Games" began to appear only irregularly. Other authors began to share the column, and the June 1986 issue saw the final installment under that title. In 1981, on Gardner's retirement from ''Scientific American'', the column was replaced by [[Douglas Hofstadter]]'s "[[Metamagical Themas]]", a name that is an [[anagram]] of "Mathematical Games".

Virtually all of the games columns were collected in book form<ref name=renz>[https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201103/201103-full-issue.pdf Peter Renz] Memories of Martin Gardner ''Notices of the AMS'', vol 58 #3, p. 421</ref> starting in 1959 with ''The Scientific American Book of Mathematical Puzzles & Diversions''.<ref>[http://ansible.uk/misc/mgardner.html Martin Gardner: Mathematical Games Collections] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160629190922/http://ansible.uk/misc/mgardner.html |date=2016-06-29 }} by David Langford</ref> Over the next four decades fourteen more books followed.<ref name=England_2014>England (2014)</ref> [[Donald Knuth]] called them the [[Martin Gardner bibliography#"Mathematical Games": The ''Scientific American'' columns|canonical books]].<ref>[http://assets.cambridge.org/97805217/56136/frontmatter/9780521756136_frontmatter.pdf The New Martin Gardner Mathematical Library] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161226221136/http://assets.cambridge.org/97805217/56136/frontmatter/9780521756136_frontmatter.pdf |date=2016-12-26 }} Cambridge University Press</ref><ref>[http://martin-gardner.org/SciAm2.html The Canon: The fifteen "Mathematical Games" books at martin-gardner.org] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150216210643/http://martin-gardner.org/SciAm2.html |date=2015-02-16 }}</ref>

==Influence==
{{quote box
|quote= His depth and clarity will illuminate our world for a long time.<ref name=princeton_university_press>Princeton University Press: Reviews of Undiluted Hocus-Pocus</ref>
|source= –[[Persi Diaconis]]
|align = right
|width = 33%
}}

Martin Gardner had a major impact on mathematics in the second half of the 20th century.<ref>Princeton University Press: Reviews of Undiluted Hocus-Pocus: "Martin Gardner occupies a special place in twentieth-century mathematics. More than any other single individual, he inspired a generation of young people to study math."–[[Barry Arthur Cipra]]</ref><ref>Bellos (2010):  He was not a mathematician – he never even took a maths class after high school{{snd}}yet Martin Gardner, who has died aged 95, was arguably the most influential and inspirational figure in mathematics in the second half of the last century.</ref> His column ran for 25 years and was read avidly by the generation of mathematicians and physicists who grew up in the years 1956 to 1981.<ref>Mulcahy (2014):  It's been said that he had a million readers there at his peak.</ref><ref>Malkevitch (2014): Martin Gardner's columns and books have been referenced by huge numbers of research papers that involve mathematics.</ref> His writing inspired, directly or indirectly, many who would go on to careers in mathematics, science, and other related endeavors.<ref>Hofstadter (2010):  Many of today's most influential mathematicians and physicists, magicians and philosophers, writers and computer scientists, owe their direction to Martin Gardner. They may not even be aware of how big a role he played in their development.</ref>{{efn|Eventually, when I was around 12 years old, through my puzzle explorations I of course also had the good fortune of discovering the works of Martin Gardner. They inspired me a huge amount, and gave me something far more enjoyable to do than go to math class! I also read other recreational mathematics and puzzle books, such as those of Raymond Smullyan, and all of these works definitely had a great influence on me as a playing and playful mathematician.}}<ref>Bhargava (2018)</ref><ref>Antonick (2014):  Martin Gardner was well known for inspiring generations of students to become professional mathematicians.</ref><ref name=Antonick_2014>Antonick (2014): "Martin Gardner's column in ''Scientific American'' was one of the two things that, above all others, convinced me I wanted to be a mathematician."–Ian Stewart</ref><ref>Demaine (2008) p. ix: Many of today's mathematicians entered this field through Gardner's influence.</ref><ref>Crease (2018): "As a columnist for ''Scientific American'', Gardner inspired generations of physicists, mathematicians, philosophers, puzzle-makers, logicians, magicians and others, including me."</ref>

Gardner's admirers included such diverse individuals as [[W. H. Auden]],  [[Arthur C. Clarke]], [[Carl Sagan]], [[Isaac Asimov]], [[Richard Dawkins]], [[Stephen Jay Gould]], and the entire French literary group known as the [[Oulipo]].<ref name=Mulcahy_2013>Mulcahy (2013)</ref><ref name=Brown_2010/><ref name=the_economist_2010>The Economist (2010)</ref><ref name=Dirda_2009>Dirda (2009)</ref> [[Salvador Dalí]] once sought him out to discuss four-dimensional [[hypercube]]s.<ref>Mulcahy (2017):  The surrealist artist was intrigued by Martin's writings on the 4-dimensional cube, or tesseract{{snd}}which had been a prominent feature of his own 1954 painting [[Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus)]].</ref> [[David Auerbach]] wrote: "A case can be made, in purely practical terms, for Martin Gardner as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. His popularizations of science and mathematical games in Scientific American, over the 25 years he wrote for them, might have helped create more young mathematicians and computer scientists than any other single factor prior to the advent of the personal computer."<ref name=Auerbach_2013>Auerbach (2013)</ref> [[Colm Mulcahy]] described him as "without doubt the best friend mathematics ever had."<ref name=Mulcahy_2017>Mulcahy (2017)</ref>

Gardner's column introduced the public to books such as [[A K Dewdney]]’s ''[[Planiverse]]'' and [[Douglas Hofstadter]]’s ''[[Gödel, Escher, Bach]]''.<ref>AMS Notices (2011)</ref><ref>Malkevitch (2014)</ref>{{efn|The range of wonderful problems, examples, and theorems that Gardner treated over the years is enormous. They include ideas from geometry, algebra, number theory, graph theory, topology, and knot theory, to name but a few.}}<ref>Bellos, Alex (2010)</ref>{{efn|I discovered how good [the columns] really were, covering everything from public-key cryptography to superstring theory. He was the first to cover so many breakthroughs. Gardner was instrumental in spreading the awareness and understanding of [[M. C. Escher|M. C. Escher’s]] work. Gardner wrote to Escher in 1961 to ask permission to use his Horseman tessellation in an upcoming column about [[H.S.M. Coxeter]]. Escher replied, saying that he knew Gardner as author of ''The Annotated Alice'', which had been sent to Escher by Coxeter. The correspondence led to Gardner introducing the previously unknown Escher's art to the world.}}<ref name=Mulcahy_2017/> His writing was credited as both broad and deep.<ref>BBC News (2014):  It went a lot further than puzzles{{snd}}there was substance, depth and a fair share of mystery and wonder in the topics he wrote about.</ref><ref>BBC News (2014):  Penrose tiles are a good example of just how 'nontrivial' the consequences of his puzzle column could be. The materials scientist Dan Shechtman actually won a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2011 'for the discovery of quasicrystals'{{snd}}three-dimensional Penrose tiles{{snd}}in some aluminium-manganese alloys.</ref><ref>Hofstadter (2010):  His approach and his ways of combining ideas are truly unique and truly creative, and, if I dare say so, what Martin Gardner has done is of far greater originality than work that has won many people Nobel Prizes.</ref> [[Noam Chomsky]] once wrote, "Martin Gardner's contribution to contemporary intellectual culture is unique{{snd}}in its range, its insight, and understanding of hard questions that matter."<ref name=Brown_2010>Brown (2010)</ref><ref>MacTutor: Gardner has produced a number of mathematical papers, written with leading mathematicians.</ref> Gardner repeatedly alerted the public (and other mathematicians) to recent discoveries in mathematics–recreational and otherwise. In addition to introducing many first-rate puzzles and topics such as [[Penrose tiling|Penrose tiles]]<ref>Kullman (1997): Martin Gardner, in his "Mathematical Games" column in ''Scientific American'' presented "for the first time" a description of the Penrose tiles, including many of Conway's results concerning them.</ref> and [[Conway's Game of Life]],<ref>MAA FOCUS (2010): "Another milestone was in late 1970, when Martin’s column introduced the world to John Horton Conway’s Game of Life"–[[John Derbyshire]]</ref> he was equally adept at writing columns about traditional mathematical topics such as [[knot theory]], [[Fibonacci numbers]], [[Pascal's triangle]], the [[Möbius strip]], [[transfinite numbers]], [[four-dimensional space]], [[Zeno's paradoxes]], [[Fermat's Last Theorem]], and the [[four-color problem]].<ref name=Auerbach_2013/><ref name=hofstadter>Hofstadter (2010)</ref>

Gardner set a new high standard for writing about mathematics.<ref>AMS Notices (2004): "His crystalline prose, always enlightening, never pedantic, set a new standard for high quality mathematical popularization." —Allyn Jackson.</ref><ref>Lister (1995):  Martin Gardner's supreme achievement was his ability to communicate difficult and often profound subjects with a few deft, but human strokes of his pen.</ref><ref>Mirsky (2010): "His writing has been valued by generations of professional mathematicians."–Ian Stewart</ref><ref>Teller (2014): "Gardner writes with authority and ease. You trust him to take you wherever he feels like going."</ref><ref>Hofstadter (2010): Martin had a magical touch in writing about math.</ref> In a 2004 interview he said, "I go up to calculus, and beyond that I don't understand any of the papers that are being written. I consider that that was an advantage for the type of column I was doing because I had to understand what I was writing about, and that enabled me to write in such a way that an average reader could understand what I was saying. If you are writing popularly about math, I think it's good not to know too much math."<ref name=allyn_jackson/> [[John Horton Conway]] called him "the most learned man I have ever met."<ref name=Mulcahy_2013/>

== Gardner's mathematical grapevine ==
{{quote box
| quote = He had carried on incredibly interesting exchanges with hundreds of mathematicians, as well as with artists and polymaths such as Maurits Escher and Piet Hein.<ref name=allyn_jackson/>
| source = – [[AMS Notices]]
| align = right
| width = 33%
}}Gardner maintained an extensive network of experts and amateurs with whom he regularly exchanged information and ideas.<ref name=Peterson_2014>Peterson (2014)</ref>  [[Doris Schattschneider]] would later term this circle of collaborators "Gardner's mathematical grapevine" or "MG<sup>2"</sup>.<ref name=Case_2014>Case (2014)</ref><ref>[[David A. Klarner]], editor (1981),  "In Praise of Amateurs" in ''The Mathematical Gardner'', Weber & Schmidt, 1981.</ref>

Gardner's role as a hub of this network helped facilitate several introductions that led to further fruitful collaborations.{{efn|Before there were search engines, the intellectual world relied on human hubs to serve as repositories of knowledge and connectors of people with common interests who otherwise would not have known one another. Martin Gardner was such a connector. His column was the best mathematical watering hole of its day, and behind the scenes he served as a tireless mathematical match-maker. Gardner was a hub par excellence.}}<ref>Propp (2015)</ref> Mathematicians Conway, Berlekamp, and Guy, who met as a result of Gardner's influence, would go on to write ''Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays'', a foundational book in [[combinatorial game theory]] that Gardner subsequently championed.<ref>Berlekamp (2014):  Partly because of what I had read about them in Martin Gardner’s columns, I was appropriately awestruck in the 1960s when I first met Sol Golomb and then Richard Guy, each of whom had a large influence on my subsequent work. In 1969 Richard introduced me to John Horton Conway, and the three of us immediately began collaborating on a book that eventually became ''Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays''. In the 1970s, I joined Conway in some of his many visits to Gardner’s home on Euclid Avenue, in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. Gardner soon became an enthusiastic advocate of our book project, and he previewed various snippets of it in his ''Scientific American'' columns.</ref><ref>[https://www.cut-the-knot.org/books/WW1/back.shtml Reviews of the first edition of Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays] cut-the-knot.org</ref> Gardner also introduced Conway to Benoit Mandelbrot because he knew of their mutual interest in [[Penrose tiling|Penrose tiles]].<ref name=Mulcahy_2014/><ref>Gardner (2013) page 144: Conway had been making new discoveries about Penrose tiling, and Mandelbrot was interested because Penrose tiling patterns are fractals.</ref> Gardner's network was also responsible for introducing Doris Schattschneider and [[Marjorie Rice]], who worked together to document the newly discovered pentagon tilings.<ref name=Peterson_2014/><ref>{{citation|last=Cole|first=K. C.|title=Beating the Pros to the Punch|date=March 11, 1998|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-mar-11-mn-27706-story.html|journal=[[Los Angeles Times]]}}.</ref>

As he was launching his monthly column in 1956 and 1957, Gardner began corresponding with mathematicians such as [[Claude Shannon]], [[John Forbes Nash Jr. | John Nash]], [[John Milnor]], and [[David Gale]].<ref>AMS Notices (2011)</ref>He credited his network with generating further material for his columns: "When I first started the column, I was not in touch with any mathematicians, and gradually mathematicians who were creative in the field found out about the column and began corresponding with me.  So my most interesting columns were columns based on the material I got from them, so I owe them a big debt of gratitude."<ref name=Case_2014/>

Gardner prepared each of his columns in a painstaking and scholarly fashion and conducted copious correspondence to be sure that everything was fact-checked for mathematical accuracy.<ref>AMS Notices (2011)</ref> Communication was often by postcard or telephone and Gardner kept meticulous notes of everything, typically on index cards.<ref>BBC News (2014):  His secret was a fantastic card index system of his own, going back to the 1930s, stored in shoe boxes.</ref> Archives of some of his correspondence stored at [[Stanford University]] occupy some 63 linear feet of shelf space.<ref>[https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt6s20356s/ Stanford University Archives: Gardner (Martin) Papers] Online Archive of California</ref> This correspondence led to columns about the [[rep-tile]]s and [[pentominos]] of Solomon W. Golomb; the [[Gosper curve|space filling curves]] of Bill Gosper;<ref>''[https://books.google.com/books?id=twp0-yA-GVAC&dq=gosper+martin+gardner&pg=PA1 Discrete Geometry, Combinatorics and Graph Theory]'' : Revised selected papers; Jin Akiyama, William Y.C. Chen, Mikio Kano</ref> the [[aperiodic set of prototiles|aperiodic]] tiles of Roger Penrose; the [[Conway's Game of Life|Game of Life]] invented by John H. Conway; the [[superellipse]] and the [[Soma cube]] of Piet Hein; the [[trapdoor function]]s of [[Whitfield Diffie|Diffie]], [[Martin Hellman|Hellman]], and [[Ralph Merkle|Merkle]]; the [[flexagon]]s of [[Arthur H. Stone|Stone]], [[Bryant Tuckerman|Tuckerman]], [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]], and Tukey; the geometrical delights in a book by H. S. M. Coxeter; the [[game of Hex]] invented by Piet Hein and John Nash; Tutte's account of [[squaring the square]]; and many other topics.

The wide array of mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, philosophers, magicians, artists, writers, and other influential thinkers who can be counted as part of Gardner's mathematical grapevine includes:<ref name=Case_2014/><ref name=BBC_News>BBC News (2014)</ref><ref name=hofstadter/><ref name=gardner_1998>Gardner (1998)</ref><ref name=teller/><ref name=Mulcahy_2013/><ref>[http://mathfactor.uark.edu/2010/06/ha-conway-on-gardner/ The Math Factor Podcast Website] John H. Conway reminisces on his long friendship and collaboration with Martin Gardner.</ref><ref name=Antonick_2014/><ref name=Peterson_2014>Peterson (2014)</ref>

{{div col|colwidth=12em}}
* [[Robert Ammann]]
* [[Mitsumasa Anno]]
* [[Elwyn R. Berlekamp]]
* [[Dmitri A. Borgmann]]
* [[Gregory Chaitin]]
* [[Fan Chung]]
* [[John Horton Conway]]
* [[H.S.M. Coxeter]]
* [[Erik Demaine]]
* [[Persi Diaconis]]
* [[M. C. Escher]]
* [[Solomon W. Golomb]]
* [[Bill Gosper]]
* [[Ronald Graham]]
* [[Richard K. Guy]]
* [[Frank Harary]]
* [[Piet Hein (scientist)|Piet Hein]]
* [[Douglas Hofstadter]]
* [[Ray Hyman]]
* [[Scott Kim]]
* [[David A. Klarner]]
* [[Donald Knuth]]
* [[Harry Lindgren]]
* [[Benoit Mandelbrot]]
* [[Robert Nozick]]
* [[Penn & Teller]]
* [[Roger Penrose]]
* [[James Randi]]
* [[Marjorie Rice]]
* [[Ron Rivest]]
* [[Tom Malin Rodgers|Tom Rodgers]]
* [[Rudy Rucker]]
* [[Lee Sallows]]
* [[Doris Schattschneider]]
* [[Jeffrey Shallit]]
* [[David Singmaster]]
* [[Jerry Slocum]]
* [[Raymond Smullyan]]
* [[Ian Stewart (mathematician)|Ian Stewart]]
* [[W. T. Tutte]]
* [[Stanislaw Ulam]]
* [[Samuel Yates]]
* [[Nob Yoshigahara]]
{{div col end}}

==Public key cryptography==
{{quote box
|quote= These new ciphers are not absolutely unbreakable in the sense of the one-time pad, but in practice they are unbreakable in a much stronger sense than any cipher previously designed for widespread use. In principle these new ciphers can be broken. but only by computer programs that run for millions of years!<ref name=tensions>[https://billatnapier.medium.com/the-tensions-around-the-rsa-method-63c91fd9b2ff The Tensions Around The RSA Method] by [[Bill Buchanan (computer scientist)|Bill Buchanan]], [[medium.com]], Jan 9, 2022</ref>
|source= –Martin Gardner
|align = right
|width = 33%
}}
In his August 1977 column, "A new kind of cipher that would take millions of years to break", Gardner described a new cryptographic system invented by [[Ron Rivest]], [[Adi Shamir]] and [[Leonard Adleman]].<ref name="SIAM">{{cite journal |url=http://www.msri.org/people/members/sara/articles/rsa.pdf |journal=SIAM News |volume=36 |issue=5 |date=June 2003 |title=Still Guarding Secrets after Years of Attacks, RSA Earns Accolades for its Founders |first=Sara |last=Robinson }}</ref><ref name=history>[https://www.livinginternet.com/i/is_crypt_pkc_inv.htm Public Key Cryptography History] Living Internet</ref> The system, based on [[trapdoor function]]s, was known as [[RSA (cryptosystem)|RSA]] (after the three researchers) and has become a component of the majority of secure [[data transmission]] schemes.<ref name="BBC_News"/>  Since RSA is a relatively slow algorithm it is not widely used to directly encrypt data.<ref name=telsy>[https://www.telsy.com/rsa-encryption-cryptography-history-and-uses/ RSA Cryptography: History And Uses] Telsy Communications</ref> More often, it is used to transmit shared keys for [[symmetric-key cryptography]].<ref name=ellis>"[https://medium.com/swlh/the-day-cryptography-changed-forever-1b6aefe8bda7 The Day Cryptography Changed Forever]" by Steven Ellis, [[medium.com]], Jan 6, 2020</ref>

Gardner identified the memorandum that his column was based on and invited readers to write to Rivest to request a copy of it.<ref name=tensions/> Over seven thousand requests came pouring in, some of them from other countries.  This caused significant consternation in the US defense agencies and possible legal problems for Gardner himself.<ref>BBC News (2014): "He also broke the story of the invention of RSA cryptography — the now standard way in which confidential data such as passwords, bank information, and the like, are secured in digital transmission—getting into trouble with the US government in the process."</ref> The [[National Security Agency]] (NSA) asked the RSA team to stop distributing the report and one letter to the IEEE suggested that disseminating such information might be violating the [[Arms Export Control Act]] and the [[International Traffic in Arms Regulations]].<ref name=tensions/>  In the end the defense establishment could provide no legal basis for suppressing the new technology, and when a detailed paper about RSA was published in ''[[Communications of the ACM]]'',<ref>R. L. Rivest, A. Shamir, L. Adleman "[https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/359340.359342 A method for obtaining digital signatures and public-key cryptosystems]" [[Communications of the ACM]], Vol. 21, No. 2, Feb. 1978.</ref> the NSA’s crypto monopoly was effectively terminated.<ref name=ellis/>

==Pseudoscience and skepticism==
{{quote box
|quote= Martin Gardner is the single brightest beacon defending rationality and good science against the mysticism and anti-intellectualism that surround us.<ref name=dana_richards/>
|source= – [[Stephen Jay Gould]]
|align = right
|width = 33%
}}
Gardner was a critic of [[fringe science]]. His book ''[[Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science]]'' (1952, revised 1957) launched the modern skeptical movement.<ref name=Shermer_1997/> It debunked dubious movements and theories<ref>''[https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/06/04/reviews/000604.04regist.html There's One Born Every Minute]'' review by Ed Regis, The New York Times, June 4, 2000; "Martin Gardner's 1957 book ''Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science'' is the classic put-down of pseudoscience. Nobody who read it will soon forget its stellar roll call of mid-20th-century cranks and crackpots"</ref> including [[Horace Fletcher|Fletcherism]], [[Lamarckism]], [[food faddism]], [[Dowsing|Dowsing Rods]], [[Charles Fort]], [[Rudolf Steiner]], [[Dianetics]], the  [[Bates method|Bates method for improving eyesight]], [[Criticism of the theory of relativity#Academic and non-academic criticism|Einstein deniers]], the [[Flat Earth theory]], the lost continents of [[Atlantis]] and [[Lemuria (continent)|Lemuria]], [[worlds in collision|Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision]], [[Bridey Murphy|the reincarnation of Bridey Murphy]], [[orgone|Wilhelm Reich's orgone theory]], the [[spontaneous generation|spontaneous generation of life]], [[extra-sensory perception]] and [[psychokinesis]], [[homeopathy]], [[phrenology]], [[palmistry]], [[graphology]], and [[numerology]]. This book and his subsequent efforts (''Science: Good, Bad and Bogus'', 1981; ''Order and Surprise'', 1983, ''Gardner's Whys & Wherefores'', 1989, etc.) provoked a lot of criticism from the advocates of [[Fringe science|alternative science]] and [[New Age|New Age philosophy]].<ref>Friedel (2018): This book and his subsequent efforts earned him a wealth of detractors and antagonists in the fields of “fringe science” and New Age philosophy.</ref> He kept up running dialogues (both public and private) with many of them for decades.<ref name=Shermer_1997/>

In a review of ''Science: Good, Bad and Bogus'', [[Stephen Jay Gould]] called Gardner "The Quack Detector", a writer who "expunge[d] nonsense" and in so doing had "become a priceless national resource."{{efn|In this climate, beleaguered rationalism needs its skilled debaters – writers who can combine wit, penetrating analysis, sharp prose, and sweet reason into an expansive view that expunges nonsense without stifling innovation, and that presents the excitement and humanity of science in a positive way. ... For more than thirty years, Martin Gardner has played this largely thankless role with tireless efficiency. He is more than a mere individual fighting a set of personal battles; he has become a priceless national resource.}}<ref>Gould 1982</ref> In 1976 Gardner joined with fellow skeptics philosopher [[Paul Kurtz]], psychologist [[Ray Hyman]], sociologist [[Marcello Truzzi]], and stage magician [[James Randi]] to found the [[CSICOP|Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal]] (now called the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry). Intellectuals including astronomer [[Carl Sagan]], author and biochemist [[Isaac Asimov]], psychologist [[B. F. Skinner]], and journalist [[Philip J. Klass]] became fellows of the program. From 1983 to 2002 he wrote a monthly column called "Notes of a Fringe Watcher" (originally "Notes of a Psi-Watcher") for ''[[Skeptical Inquirer]]'', that organization's monthly magazine.<ref>[https://skepticalinquirer.org/s/?https://skepticalinquirer.org/s/?_sf_s=Articles%20by%20Martin%20Gardner&_sft_authors=martin-gardner&sort_order=date+desc Articles by Martin Gardner: 115 Results] Skeptical Inquirer</ref> These columns have been collected in five books starting with ''The New Age: Notes of a Fringe Watcher'' in 1988.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=2ECKIASfKa8C Prometheus Books] The New Age: Notes of a Fringe-Watcher by Martin Gardner</ref>

Gardner was a critic of self-proclaimed Israeli [[psychic]] [[Uri Geller]] and wrote two satirical booklets about him in the 1970s using the pen name "Uriah Fuller" in which he explained how such purported psychics do their seemingly impossible feats such as [[spoon bending|mentally bending spoons]] and [[Mentalism|reading minds]].<ref>[https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/999934657902121 Confessions of a psychic : the secret notebooks of Uriah Fuller] University Of Wisconsin–Madison Library</ref>

Martin Gardner continued to criticize junk science throughout his life. His targets included not just safe subjects like [[astrology]] and [[Ufology|UFO sightings]], but more vigorously defended topics such as [[chiropractic]], [[vegetarianism]], [[creationism]], [[Scientology]], the [[Laffer Curve]], and [[Christian Science]].<ref name=Auerbach_2013/> His final work, written just a month before his death in 2010, was an article excoriating the "dubious medical opinions and bogus science" of [[Oprah Winfrey]]{{snd}}particularly her support for the thoroughly discredited theory that [[MMR vaccine controversy|vaccinations cause autism]]; it went on to bemoan the "needless deaths of children" that such notions are likely to cause.<ref>[http://www.csicop.org/si/show/oprah_winfrey_bright_but_gullible_billionaire Oprah Winfrey: Bright (but Gullible) Billionaire] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160501151211/http://www.csicop.org/si/show/oprah_winfrey_bright_but_gullible_billionaire |date=2016-05-01 }} [[Skeptical Inquirer]], March/April 2010</ref>

''Skeptical Inquirer'' named him one of the Ten Outstanding Skeptics of the Twentieth Century.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20080325140204/http://www.csicop.org/articles/19991214-century/ Skeptical Inquirer Magazine Names the Ten Outstanding Skeptics of the Century]</ref> In 2010 he was posthumously honored with an award for his contributions in the [[skeptical]] field from the [[Independent Investigations Group]].<ref>[http://www.iigwest.com/iigawards/index.html About the IIG Awards] Independent Investigations Group</ref> In 1982 the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry awarded Gardner its ''In Praise of Reason Award'' for his "heroic efforts in defense of reason and the dignity of the skeptical attitude",<ref>{{cite journal |date=1983 |title=CSICOP Council in Atlanta: Police Psychics, Local Groups |journal=The Skeptical Inquirer |volume=7 |issue=3 |page=13}}</ref> and in 2011 it added Gardner to its Pantheon of Skeptics.<ref>[https://skepticalinquirer.org/pantheon-of-skeptics/ The Pantheon of Skeptics] [[Committee for Skeptical Inquiry]]</ref>

==Magic==
{{quote box
|quote= Card magic, and magic in general, owe a far greater debt to Martin Gardner than most conjurors realize.<ref>[http://martin-gardner.org/MagicInfluence.html Martin Gardner's Magic Influence] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160521183446/http://martin-gardner.org/MagicInfluence.html |date=2016-05-21 }} at martin-gardner.org</ref>
|source= –Stephen Minch
|align = right
|width = 33%
}}

Martin Gardner held a lifelong fascination with magic and illusion that began when his father demonstrated a trick to him.<ref>Costello (1988) p. 115:  His father had taught him his first trick, the "Knife and Paper" trick, a bit of legerdemain involving a butter knife with bits of paper on it.</ref> He wrote for a magic magazine in high school and worked in a department store demonstrating magic tricks while he was at the University of Chicago.<ref name=Bellos_2010>Bellos (2010)</ref> Gardner's first published writing (at the age of fifteen) was a magic trick in ''[[The Sphinx (magazine)|The Sphinx]]'', the official magazine of the [[Society of American Magicians]].<ref name=G4G>Gathering 4 Gardner (2014)</ref> He focused mainly on [[micromagic]] (table or close-up magic) and, from the 1930s on, published a significant number of original contributions to this secretive field. Magician [[Joe M. Turner]] said, ''The Encyclopedia of Impromptu Magic'', which Gardner wrote in 1985, "is guaranteed to show up in any poll of magicians' favorite magic books."<ref>Demaine (2008) p. 12</ref><ref>[http://miraclefactory.net/zenstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=78 Reviews of Martin Gardner's ''Impromptu''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170321082731/http://miraclefactory.net/zenstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=78 |date=2017-03-21 }} The Miracle Factory</ref> His first magic book for the general public, ''Mathematics, Magic and Mystery'' (Dover, 1956), is still considered a classic in the field.<ref name=G4G/> He was well known for his innovative tapping and spelling effects, with and without [[playing cards]], and was most proud of the effect he called the "Wink Change".<ref>Demaine (2008): pp. 4–5</ref>

Many of Gardner's lifelong friends were magicians.<ref name=origami>Lister (1995)</ref> These included William Simon who introduced Gardner to Charlotte Greenwald, whom he married in 1952, [[Dai Vernon]], [[Jerry Andrus]], statistician [[Persi Diaconis]], and polymath [[Raymond Smullyan]]. Gardner considered fellow magician [[James Randi]] his closest friend. Diaconis and Smullyan like Gardner straddled the two worlds of mathematics and magic.<ref name=hofstadter/> Mathematics and magic were frequently intertwined in Gardner's work.<ref>[http://store.doverpublications.com/0486203352.html from Dover Publications:  ''Mathematics, Magic and Mystery''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160506140604/http://store.doverpublications.com/0486203352.html |date=2016-05-06 }} "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."</ref> One of his earliest books, ''Mathematics, Magic and Mystery'' (1956), was about mathematically based magic tricks.<ref name=Bellos_2010/> Mathematical magic tricks were often featured in his "Mathematical Games" column–for example, his August 1962 column was titled "A variety of diverting tricks collected at a fictitious convention of magicians." From 1998 to 2002 he wrote a monthly column on magic tricks called "Trick of the Month" in [[The Physics Teacher]], a journal published by the [[American Association of Physics Teachers]].<ref>[http://www.doverpublications.com/mathsci/0516/d/ The Dover Math and Science Newsletter] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150503043436/http://www.doverpublications.com/mathsci/0516/d/ |date=2015-05-03 }} May 16, 2011</ref>

In 1999 ''[[Magic (American magazine)|Magic magazine]]'' named Gardner one of the "100 Most Influential Magicians of the Twentieth Century".<ref name=magic>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/colm-mulcahy/top-10-martin-gardner-boo_b_6062276.html Top 10 Martin Gardner Books] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160325041816/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/colm-mulcahy/top-10-martin-gardner-boo_b_6062276.html |date=2016-03-25 }}, by Colm Mulcahy, Huffington Post Books, October 28, 2014</ref> In 2005 he received a 'Lifetime Achievement Fellowship' from the [[Academy of Magical Arts]].<ref name=HallofFame>{{cite web|title=Hall of Fame|url=http://www.magiccastle.com/hall_of_fame/|website=The Academy of Magical Arts|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161120002854/http://www.magiccastle.com/hall_of_fame/|archive-date=2016-11-20|access-date=2017-12-24}}</ref> The last work to be published during his lifetime was a magic trick in the May 2010 issue of ''[[Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics]]''.<ref name=G4G/>

==Theism and religion==
{{quote box
|quote= I am a philosophical theist. I believe in a personal God, and I believe in an afterlife, and I believe in prayer, but I don't believe in any established religion. This is called philosophical theism. ... Philosophical theism is entirely emotional. As Kant said, he destroyed pure reason to make room for faith.<ref name=spectrummagazine.org/>
|source = – Martin Gardner, 2008
|align = right
|width = 33% }}

Gardner was raised as a [[Methodism|Methodist]]—his mother was very religious—but rejected established religion as an adult.<ref name=fame>[https://www.famousscientists.org/martin-gardner/ Martin Gardner] Famous Scientists</ref> He considered himself a [[philosophical theism|philosophical theist]] and a [[fideist]].<ref name=spectrummagazine.org>{{cite web | url=http://www.spectrummagazine.org/node/1091 | title=Interview: Martin Gardner on Philosophical Theism, Adventists and Price | magazine=[[Spectrum (magazine)|Spectrum]] | date=17 October 2008 | access-date=December 21, 2019 | author=Carpenter, Alexander | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160713163439/http://spectrummagazine.org/node/1091 | archive-date= July 13, 2016 |url-status=live }}</ref> He believed in a personal [[God]], in an [[afterlife]], and prayer, but rejected established religion. Nevertheless, he had an abiding fascination with religious belief. In his autobiography, he stated: "When many of my fans discovered that I believed in God and even hoped for an afterlife, they were shocked and dismayed ... I do not mean the [[God of the Bible]], especially the God of the [[Old Testament]], or any other book that claims to be divinely inspired. For me God is a "Wholly Other" transcendent intelligence, impossible for us to understand. He or she is somehow responsible for our universe and capable of providing, how I have no inkling, an afterlife."<ref>Gardner (2013) [https://archive.org/details/undilutedhocuspo0000gard/page/152 <!-- quote=how I have no inkling. --> p. 191]</ref>

Gardner described his own belief as [[philosophical theism]] inspired by the works of philosopher [[Miguel de Unamuno]]. While eschewing systematic religious doctrine, he retained a belief in God, asserting that reason or science cannot confirm or disconfirm this belief.<ref name=george_groth>Groth (1983)</ref> At the same time, he was skeptical of claims that any god has communicated with human beings through spoken or telepathic [[revelation]] or through [[miracle]]s in the natural world.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/may/25/martin-gardner Martin Gardner: 1914–2010: Chris French mourns the passing of Martin Gardner], ''[[The Guardian]]'', May 25, 2010</ref> Gardner has been quoted as saying that he regarded [[parapsychology]] and other research into the [[paranormal]] as tantamount to "tempting God" and seeking "[[signs and wonders]]". He stated that while he would expect tests on the efficacy of prayers to be negative, he would not rule out ''a priori'' the possibility that unknown paranormal forces may allow prayers to influence the physical world.<ref name=ReferenceA>''The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener'' by Martin Gardner, Quill, 1983, pp. 238–239</ref>

Gardner wrote repeatedly about what public figures such as [[Robert Maynard Hutchins]], [[Mortimer Adler]], and [[William F. Buckley, Jr.]] believed and whether their beliefs were [[logically consistent]]. He sometimes attacked prominent religious figures such as [[Mary Baker Eddy]] because their claims were unsupportable. His semi-autobiographical novel ''The Flight of Peter Fromm'' depicts a traditionally Protestant Christian struggling with his faith, examining 20th-century scholarship and intellectual movements and ultimately rejecting Christianity while remaining a theist.<ref name=george_groth/>

Gardner said that he suspected that the fundamental nature of human [[consciousness]] may not be knowable or discoverable unless perhaps a physics more profound than ("underlying") [[quantum mechanics]] is someday developed. In this regard, he said, he belonged to "a group of thinkers known as the '[[new mysterianism|mysterians]]'."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20160131235956/http://www.csicop.org/si/show/mind_at_play_an_interview_with_martin_gardner "A Mind at Play: An Interview with Martin Gardner"] by [[Kendrick Frazier]], ''[[Skeptical Inquirer]]'' Volume 22.2, March/April 1998</ref> His philosophical views, in general, are described and defended in his book ''The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener'' (1983, revised 1999).<ref name=Night_is_Large/>

==Annotated works==
Gardner was considered a leading authority on [[Lewis Carroll]]. His annotated version of ''[[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'' and ''[[Through the Looking Glass]]'', explaining the many mathematical riddles, wordplay, and literary references found in the Alice books, was first published as ''The Annotated Alice'' (Clarkson Potter, 1960). Sequels were published with new annotations as ''More Annotated Alice'' (Random House, 1990), and finally as ''The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition'' (Norton, 1999), combining notes from the earlier editions and new material.<ref>Dirda (2009):  With this book Gardner virtually launched the entire mini-genre of annotated classics.</ref> The original book arose when Gardner found the Alice books "sort of frightening" when he was young, but found them fascinating as an adult.<ref>Jan Susina. ''Conversation with Martin Gardner: Annotator of Wonderland.'' ''The Five Owls.'' Jan./Feb. 2000. 62–64.</ref> He felt that someone ought to annotate them, and suggested to a publisher that [[Bertrand Russell]] be asked; when the publisher was unable to get past Russell's secretary, Gardner was asked to take on the project himself.<ref name=alice>[http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/alice-still-lives-here/Content?oid=1184525 Alice Still Lives Here] by Michael Sims, ''[[Nashville Scene]]'',  July 06, 2000</ref>

There had long been annotated books written by scholars for other scholars, but Gardner was the first to write such a work for the general public,<ref name=richards_2018>Richards (2018)</ref> and soon many other writers followed his lead.<ref>Kindley (2015): Just as importantly, though, ''The Annotated Alice'' gave rise to a new popular genre.</ref><ref>Richards (2018): The look and feel was entirely due to Martin Gardner.</ref> Gardner himself went on to produce annotated editions of G. K. Chesterton's ''[[Father Brown|The Innocence Of Father Brown]]'' and ''[[The Man Who Was Thursday]]'', as well as of celebrated poems including ''[[The Rime of the Ancient Mariner]]'', ''[[Casey at the Bat]]'', ''[[The Night Before Christmas]]'', and ''[[The Hunting of the Snark]]''.<ref name=origami/>

==Novels and short stories==
Gardner wrote two novels. He was a fan of the [[Oz books]] written by [[L. Frank Baum]],<ref>MacTutor:  My mother read ''The Wizard of Oz'' to me when I was a little boy, and I looked over her shoulder as she read it. I learned how to read that way.</ref> and in 1998 he published ''[[Visitors from Oz]]'', based on the characters in Baum's various Oz books. Gardner was a founding member of the [[International Wizard of Oz Club]], and winner of its 1971 L. Frank Baum Memorial Award. His other novel was ''The Flight of Peter Fromm'' (1973), which reflected his lifelong fascination with religious belief and the problem of faith.<ref>Brown (2010):  Faith was also the subject of his 1973 semi-autobiographical novel, "The Flight of Peter Fromm," in which the title character and his atheist professor of divinity grapple for decades with questions about God.</ref>

His short stories were collected in ''The No-Sided Professor and Other Tales of Fantasy, Humor, Mystery, and Philosophy'' (1987).<ref name=allyn_jackson/>

==Autobiography==
At the age of 95 Gardner wrote ''Undiluted Hocus-Pocus: The Autobiography of Martin Gardner''.  He was living in a one-room apartment in Norman, Oklahoma and, as was his custom, wrote it on a typewriter and edited it using scissors and rubber cement.<ref name=teller>Teller (2014)</ref> He took the title from a poem, a so-called [[grook]], by his good friend Piet Hein,<ref>[http://www.leptonica.com/cachedpages/grooks/grooks.html Grooks by Piet Hein] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010004135/http://www.leptonica.com/cachedpages/grooks/grooks.html |date=2014-10-10 }}</ref> which perfectly expresses Gardner's abiding sense of mystery and wonder about existence.<ref>''[https://www.ams.org/notices/201403/rnoti-p281.pdf Undiluted Hocus-Pocus]'', Princeton University Press, 2013, {{ISBN|978-0691159911}}, Reviewed by [[Andy Magid]]</ref>
{{poemquote
|We glibly talk
 of nature's laws
but do things have
 a natural cause?

Black earth turned into
 yellow crocus
is undiluted
 hocus-pocus.
}}

==Word play==
Gardner's interest in wordplay led him to conceive of a magazine on [[recreational linguistics]]. In 1967 he pitched the idea to [[Greenwood Publishing Group|Greenwood Periodicals]] and nominated [[Dmitri Borgmann]] as editor.<ref name=undiluted>Eckler, A. Ross (2010) [https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/wordways/vol43/iss3/6/ "Look Back!"] Word Ways: Vol 43: Issue 3, Article 6</ref> The resulting journal, ''[[Word Ways]]'', carried many of his articles—some of them  posthumously—until publication ceased in 2020.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Farrell |first1=Jeremiah |title=More Word Ways? |journal=Word Ways |date=November 2020 |volume=53 |issue=3 |page=4 |url=https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5950&context=wordways |access-date=19 September 2020}}</ref> He also wrote a "Puzzle Tale" column for ''[[Asimov's Science Fiction]]'' magazine from 1977 to 1986. Gardner was a member of the all-male literary banqueting club the [[Trap Door Spiders]], which served as the basis of Isaac Asimov's fictional group of mystery solvers, the [[Black Widowers]].<ref>[http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2008/10/the-martin-gardner-interview-part-4/ Don Albers' interview of Gardner, Part 4: The Trap Door Spiders] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081119143846/http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2008/10/the-martin-gardner-interview-part-4/ |date=2008-11-19 }}</ref>

==Pen names==
Gardner often used pen names. In 1952, while working for the children's magazine ''[[Humpty Dumpty (magazine)|Humpty Dumpty]]'', he contributed stories written by "Humpty Dumpty Jnr". For several years starting in 1953 he was a managing editor of ''Polly Pigtails'', a magazine for young girls, and also wrote under that name. His ''Annotated Casey at the Bat'' (1967) included a parody of the poem, attributed to "Nitram Rendrag" (his name spelled backwards). Using the pen name "Uriah Fuller", he wrote two books attacking the alleged psychic [[Uri Geller]]. In later years, Gardner often wrote parodies of his favorite poems under the name "Armand T. Ringer", an [[anagram]] of his name.<ref name=alters>[http://martin-gardner.org/Top10MGAE.html Top 10 Martin Gardner Alter Egos] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170317115739/http://martin-gardner.org/Top10MGAE.html |date=2017-03-17 }} at martin-gardner.org</ref> In 1983 one George Groth panned Gardner's book ''The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener'' in the ''[[New York Review of Books]]''. Only in the last line of the review was it revealed that George Groth was Martin Gardner himself.<ref name=Night_is_Large>"Gardner's Whys" in ''The Night is Large'', chapter 40, pp. 481–87.</ref>

In his January 1960 "Mathematical Games" column, Gardner introduced the fictitious "[[Dr. Matrix]]" and wrote about him often over the next two decades. Dr. Matrix was not exactly a pen name, although Gardner did pretend that everything in these columns came from the fertile mind of the good doctor. Then in 1979 Dr. Matrix himself published an article in the quite respectable ''[[Two-Year College Mathematics Journal]]''.<ref>Matrix, Irving Joshua (1979). ''Martin Gardner: Defending the Honor of the Human Mind'', The Two-Year College Mathematics Journal, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Sep., 1979), pp. 227–232.</ref> It was called ''Martin Gardner: Defending the Honor of the Human Mind'' and contained a biography of Gardner and a history of his "Mathematical Games" column. It would be a further decade before Martin published an article in such a mathematics journal under his own name.<ref name=alters/>

==Philosophy of mathematics==
Gardner wrote on the [[philosophy of mathematics]].<ref name=cryptozoo>[http://www.cryptozoonews.com/gardner-obit/ Skeptic Martin Gardner Dies] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151002135149/http://www.cryptozoonews.com/gardner-obit/ |date=2015-10-02 }} by Loren Coleman, CryptoZoo News, May 23, 2010</ref> He wrote negative reviews of ''[[The Mathematical Experience]]'' by [[Philip J. Davis]] and [[Reuben Hersh]] and ''What Is Mathematics, Really?'' by Hersh, both of which were critical of aspects of [[mathematical Platonism]], and the first of which was well received by the mathematical community. While Gardner was often perceived as a hard-core Platonist, his reviews demonstrated some [[formalism (mathematics)|formalist]] tendencies.<ref>[https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1981/08/13/is-mathematics-for-real/ Is Mathematics for Real?] by Martin Gardner, The New York Review, Aug 13, 1981</ref> Gardner maintained that his views are widespread among mathematicians, but Hersh has countered that in his experience as a professional mathematician and speaker, this is not the case.<ref>{{cite web |last=Hersh |first=Reuben |date=31 October 1997 |title=Re: Martin Gardner book review |work=Foundations of Mathematics mailing list |url=http://www.cs.nyu.edu/pipermail/fom/1997-November/000128.html |access-date=22 May 2010}}</ref>

==Mathematics education==
In the August 1998 edition of Scientific American, Gardner wrote his final piece for Scientific American titled, "A Quarter Century of Recreational Mathematics."  In it he wrote,<ref>[https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/a-quarter-century-of-recreational-m-2010-05-26/ A Quarter Century of Recreational Mathematics, by Martin Gardner] ''Scientific America''n blog on May 29, 2010</ref>

{{quote| For 40 years I have done my best to convince educators that recreational math should be incorporated into the standard curriculum. It should be regularly introduced as a way to interest young students in the wonders of mathematics. So far, though, movement in this direction has been glacial.}}

He recalls how as a young boy a math teacher had scolded him for working on a bit of recreational mathematics and laments at how wrongheaded this attitude is. He notes that the magazine ''Mathematics Teacher'' published by the [[National Council of Teachers of Mathematics]], and specially dedicated to improving mathematics instruction for grades 8–14,<ref>[https://www.nctm.org/publications/mathematics-teacher/ Mathematics Teacher website] National Council of Mathematics Teachers</ref> often has articles on recreational topics but that most teachers do not use them.<ref name=gardner_1998/>

Martin Gardner was also frustrated by the fact that the history curriculum rarely featured scientists and mathematicians. In a New York Times review of [[Stanisław Ulam|Stanislaw Ulam]]'s autobiographical book, ''Adventures Of a Mathematician'', he said,<ref>''[https://www.nytimes.com/1976/05/09/archives/adventures-of-a-mathematician-the-man-who-invented-the-hbomb.html Adventures of a Mathematician]'' reviewed by Martin Gardner, New York Times, May 9, 1967</ref>

{{quote| 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.

Ulam has never ceased to be amazed by “how a few scribbles on a blackboard … could change the course of human affairs.” That this kind of symbol manipulation, in the hands of absent‐minded intellects, can shape history for both good and evil is the apocalyptic center of Ulam's story.

Behind the scenes, invisible to all but a few, are the discoverers of these curious patterns in the cosmic carpet. They scribble their hieroglyphics on the back of a menu and men go to the moon, harness the atom, crack the genetic code, transform the planet's face.}}

==Legacy and awards==
The numerous awards Gardner received include:<ref>[http://martin-gardner.org/Awards.html Martin Gardner's Awards] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160318223932/http://martin-gardner.org/Awards.html |date=2016-03-18 }}</ref>
* 1987 – [[Leroy P. Steele Prize]] for his many books and articles on mathematics
* 1971 – L. Frank Baum Memorial Award from the [[International Wizard of Oz Club]]
* 1980 – The main-belt asteroid ''2587 Gardner'' discovered by [[Edward L. G. Bowell]] at [[Anderson Mesa Station]] is named after Martin Gardner.<ref>[http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=Gardner JPL Small-Body Database Browser] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180706150326/https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=Gardner |date=2018-07-06 }} 2587 Gardner (1980 OH)</ref>
* 1990 – [[Allendoerfer Award]] (along with Fan Chung & Ronald Graham) from [[The Mathematical Association of America]] (MAA)
* 1994 – JPBM Communications Award from the [[Joint Policy Board for Mathematics]]
* 1997 – became a Fellow (Class: Humanities and Arts, Section: Literature) of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]].
* 1998 – [[Mathematical Association of America#Awards and prizes|Trevor Evans Award]] from the MAA<ref>[https://www.maa.org/evans-award The Mathematical Association of America's Trevor Evans Awards] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170516135420/http://www.maa.org/evans-award |date=2017-05-16 }}</ref>
* 1999 – listed in the "100 Most Influential Magicians of the Twentieth Century" by [[Magic (American magazine)|Magic magazine]].<ref>Magic magazine, Jun 1999, page 60</ref>
* 2011 – Houdini Hall of Honor award (posthumous) from the [[Independent Investigations Group]]

The Mathematical Association of America has established a Martin Gardner Lecture to be given each year on the last day of [[Mathematical Association of America#Meetings|MAA MathFest]], the summer meeting of the MAA. The first annual lecture, ''Recreational Mathematics and Computer Science: Martin Gardner's Influence on Research'', was given by [[Erik Demaine]] of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Saturday, August 3, 2019, at MathFest in Cincinnati.<ref>[https://www.maa.org/meetings/mathfest/program-details/2019/invited-addresses MAA MathFest 2019] Invited Addresses</ref>  The 2021 lecture ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y10nnD0NZUA Surprising discoveries of three amateur mathematicians:  M.C. Escher, Marjorie Rice, and Rinus Roelofs]'' was virtual and was given by Doris Schattschneider.<ref>[https://www.maa.org/meetings/mathfest-archive/historical-invited-address-speakers Doris Schattschneider] MAA: 2021 Martin Gardner Lecturer</ref>

There are eight bricks honoring Gardner in the [[Paul R. Halmos]] Commemorative Walk, installed by The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) at their Conference Center in Washington, D.C.<ref>[https://www.maa.org/news/brick-installation-honors-martin-gardner Brick Installation Honors Martin Gardner] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170628173936/http://www.maa.org/news/brick-installation-honors-martin-gardner |date=2017-06-28 }} MAA New release</ref> Gardner has an [[Erdős number]] of 1.<ref name=erdos>[https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/john-conway-reminiscences-about-dr-matrix-and-bourbaki/ John Conway Reminiscences about Dr. Matrix and Bourbaki] by Dana Richards & Collm Mulcahy, ''Scientific American'', October 1, 2014</ref>

==Gathering 4 Gardner==
{{Main|Gathering 4 Gardner}}
Martin Gardner continued to write up until his death in 2010, and his community of fans grew to span several generations.<ref name=dana_richards/> Moreover, his influence was so broad that many of his fans had little or no contact with each other.<ref>MAA FOCUS (2010): "His heritage goes beyond essays and books; he left a community of magicians, mathematicians, and wits carrying things forward and delighting in it all."–[[Peter Renz]]</ref> This led [[Atlanta, Georgia|Atlanta]] entrepreneur and puzzle collector [[Tom Malin Rodgers|Tom Rodgers]] to the idea of hosting a weekend gathering celebrating Gardner's contributions to recreational mathematics, rationality, magic, puzzles, literature, and philosophy.<ref name=Mulcahy_2013/>  Although Gardner was famously shy, and would usually decline an honor if it required him to make a personal appearance, Rogers persuaded him to attend the first such "Gathering 4 Gardner" (G4G), held in Atlanta in January 1993.<ref>Robert P. Crease, ''[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304370304575151970094262604 Gathering for Gardner] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180328102700/https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304370304575151970094262604 |date=2018-03-28 }}'', ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'', p. W11, 2 April 2010</ref>

A second such get-together was held in 1996, again with Gardner in attendance.  A video was made for the [[CBC Television]] program ''[[The Nature of Things with David Suzuki]]''.<ref>Suzuki (1996)</ref> It featured Gardner along with many members of his circle and was called "Martin Gardner: Mathemagician" and broadcast on March 14, 1996.  At this point Rogers and his friends decided to make the gathering a regular, bi-annual event. Participants over the years have ranged from long-time Gardner friends such as [[John Horton Conway]], [[Elwyn Berlekamp]],  [[Ronald Graham]], [[Donald Coxeter]], and [[Richard K. Guy]], to newcomers like mathematician and mathematical artist [[Erik Demaine]], mathematical video maker [[Vi Hart]], and  [[Fields Medal]]ist [[Manjul Bhargava]].<ref name=dana_richards/><ref>[https://events.ajc.com/event/gathering-gardner-s-g-g-presents-poetry-drumming-and-mathematics-with-professor-manjul-bhargava--02eqzjmat6 Gathering 4 Gardner's G4G13 Presents "Poetry, Drumming, and Mathematics" with Professor Manjul Bhargava] ''[[The Atlanta Journal-Constitution]]'', April 15, 2018</ref>

The attendees at G4G include magicians, mathematicians, jugglers, philosophers, scientific skeptics, fans of Lewis Carroll, puzzle collectors, fans of Conway's game of life, Rubic's cubers, chess masters, and any other topic that Gardner was interested in or had written about.

The first gathering in 1993 was G4G1 and the 1996 event was G4G2.  Since then it has been in even-numbered years.<ref>Crease (2018)</ref> The 2018 event was G4G13.<ref>[http://www.gathering4gardner.org/g4g13-information/ G4G13 Information] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180520054438/http://www.gathering4gardner.org/g4g13-information/ |date=2018-05-20 }} gathering4gardner.org</ref> Because of the [[COVID-19 pandemic]], the G4G14 event was not held until 2022.<ref>[https://physicsworld.com/a/hello-interflexionality-what-i-learned-from-the-14th-gathering-for-gardner/ Hello interflexionality: what I learned from the 14th Gathering for Gardner], by Robert Crease, 03 August 2022. Physics World</ref> Two years later G4G15 took place.  All G4Gs up to 2024 have been in Atlanta.

==Bibliography==
{{Main|Martin Gardner bibliography}}

In a publishing career spanning 80 years (1930–2010),<ref>Gardner's first publication at age 16 was a magic trick in the periodical ''[[The Sphinx: An Independent Magazine for Magicians|The Sphinx]]''.</ref> Gardner authored or edited over 100 books and countless articles, columns and reviews.  A comprehensive bibliography of his works was published in 2023 by [[Dana Richards]], with a foreword by Donald Knuth.<ref name=biblio>
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123180094-the-bibliography-of-martin-gardner The Bibliography of Martin Gardner] Dana Richards (editor), [[Donald Knuth|Donald E. Knuth]] (foreword), June, 2023, Pub: [[Stanford_University_centers_and_institutes#Center_for_the_Study_of_Language_and_Information|Stanford Center for the Study of Language and Information]], {{ISBN|1684000327}}</ref>

He was a frequent contributor to ''[[The New York Review of Books]]''.<ref name=reviewer>[https://www.nybooks.com/contributors/martin-gardner/ Martin Gardner Contributions: 1966-1998], The New York Review</ref>

All Gardner's works were non-fiction except for two novels{{snd}}''The Flight of Peter Fromm'' (1973) and ''[[Visitors from Oz]]'' (1998){{snd}}and two collections of short pieces{{snd}}''[[Irving Joshua Matrix|The Magic Numbers of Dr. Matrix]]'' (1967, 1985) and ''The No-Sided Professor'' (1987).

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Sources==
* Albers, Don (2008). ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20230131154911/https://www.cambridgeblog.org/2008/09/the-martin-gardner-interview/ The Martin Gardner Interview]'' (in five parts) with [[Mathematical Association of America|MAA]] Editorial Director Don Albers, fifteeneightyfour: the blog of [[Cambridge University Press]]
* AMS Notices (2004). ''[https://www.ams.org/notices/200506/fea-gardner.pdf Interview with Martin Gardner]'' [[Notices of the AMS]], Vol. 52, No. 6, June/July 2005, pp.&nbsp;602–611
* AMS Notices (2011). ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20220213181832/https://www.ams.org/notices/201103/rtx110300418p.pdf Memories of Martin Gardner]'' Notices of the AMS, Vol. 58, No. 3, March 2011, p.&nbsp;420
* [[Gary Antonick|Antonick, Gary]] (2014). ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20180121184322/https://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/stewart/?_r=0 Ignited by Martin Gardner, Ian Stewart Continues to Illuminate]'' The New York Times, October 27, 2014
* Auerbach, David (2013). ''[https://lareviewofbooks.org/review/a-delville-of-a-tolkar-martin-gardners-undiluted-hocus-pocus A Delville of a Tolkar: Martin Gardner’s “Undiluted Hocus-Pocus”]'' [[Los Angeles Review of Books]], November 4, 2013
* BBC News (2014). ''[https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29688355 Martin Gardner, puzzle master extraordinaire]'' [[BBC News Magazine]], October 21, 2014
* [[Manjul Bhargava|Bhargava, Manjul]] (2018). ''[https://www.gathering4gardner.org/an-interview-with-manjul-bhargava/ An Interview with Manjul Bhargava]'' with Colm Mulcahy, G4G13, April 2018
* [[Alex Bellos|Bellos, Alex]] (2010). ''[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/may/27/martin-gardner-obituary Martin Gardner obituary]'' The Guardian, May 27, 2010
* Berlekamp, Elwyn R (2014). ''[https://sinews.siam.org/DesktopModules/PackFlashPublish/ArticleDetail/ArticleDetailPrint.aspx?ArticleID=200&Template=Standard_Print.ascx&siteID=13 The Mathematical Legacy of Martin Gardner]'' [[Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics]] (SIAM), September 2, 2014
* Berlekamp, Elwyn R.,  John H. Conway, and [[Richard K. Guy]] (1982). ''[http://annarchive.com/files/Winning%20Ways%20for%20Your%20Mathematical%20Plays%20V1.pdf Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays]'' Academic Press,  {{isbn|0120911507}}.
* Brown, Emma (2010). ''[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052304271.html Martin Gardner, prolific math and science writer, dies at 95]''  The Washington Post, May 24, 2010
* {{cite book |editor-last=Burstein |editor-first=Mark |editor-link=Mark Burstein (editor)|year=2011 |title=A Bouquet for the Gardner: Martin Gardner Remembered |publisher=The Lewis Carroll Society of North America |location=New York |isbn=978-0-930326-17-3}}
* Case, James (2014). ''[https://sinews.siam.org/Details-Page/martin-gardners-mathematical-grapevine Martin Gardner’s Mathematical Grapevine]'' By James Case, [[Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics|SIAM]] News, April 1, 2014
* Costello, Matthew J. (1988). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=CjbCdJ9o_iYC&dq=Martin+Gardner+father+smithsonian&pg=PA114 The Greatest Puzzles of All Time]'' New York: Prentice Hall Press, {{isbn|0133649369}}
* [[Robert P. Crease|Crease, Robert P]] (2018). ''[https://physicsworld.com/a/martin-gardner-would-have-smiled/ Martin Gardner would have smiled]'' [[Physics World]]: Education and Outreach Blog, 16 April 2018
* Demaine (2008). Edited by Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine, Tom Rodgers. [https://books.google.com/books?id=cU3NBQAAQBAJ&q=Wink+Change&pg=PA5 ''A lifetime of puzzles : a collection of puzzles in honor of Martin Gardner's 90th birthday''] A K Peters: Wellesley, MA, {{isbn|1568812450}}
* [[Michael Dirda|Dirda, Michael]] (2009). ''[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/21/AR2009102103700.html Book review by Michael Dirda: 'When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish' by Martin Gardner]'' [[The Washington Post]], October 22, 2009
* [[The Economist]] (2010). [https://www.economist.com/obituary/2010/06/03/martin-gardner Martin Gardner obituary] Jun 3rd 2010
* England, Jason (2014). ''The puzzling life of Martin Gardner'' [[Cosmos Magazine]], February 24, 2014
* [[Frederic Friedel|Friedel, Frederic]] (2018). ''[https://medium.com/@frederic_38110/remembering-martin-gardner-21a00304154a Remembering Martin Gardner]'', Jan 16, 2018
* Gardner, Martin (1998). [https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/assets/media/pdf/Aug2008_Martin_Gardner_Recreational_Mathematics.pdf A Quarter Century of Recreational Mathematics] by Martin Gardner, ''Scientific American'', August 1998
* Gardner, Martin (2013). ''[https://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s10066.pdf Undiluted Hocus-Pocus: The Autobiography of Martin Gardner]'' [[Princeton University Press]], {{isbn|0691159912}}.
* Gardner, Martin (2016). ''[http://www.piethein.com/page/reviews-27/ The Recreational Mathematics of Piet Hein]'' Piet Hein Website
* Gathering 4 Gardner (2014). [https://martin-gardner.org/MAGICIAN.html Martin Gardner{{snd}}Magician]
* Gould, Stephen Jay (1982). ''[https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1982/02/04/the-quack-detector/ The Quack Detector]'' The [[New York Review of Books]], February 4, 1982
* Groth, George (1983). [https://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1983/dec/08/gardners-game-with-god/ Review of Gardner’s ''Game with God''] The New York Review of Books, December 8, 1983
* Hofstadter, Douglas (2010). ''[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/martin-gardner-hofstadter/ Martin Gardner: A Major Shaping Force in My Life]'' Scientific American, May 24, 2010
* Klarner, David A. (1998). ''Mathematical Recreations:  A Collection in Honor of Martin Gardner'', Dover Publications, New York, pp. 140-166
* Kindley, Evan (2015). ''[https://newrepublic.com/article/122678/down-rabbit-hole Down the Rabbit Hole: The rise, and rise, of literary annotation]'' By Evan Kindley, [[The New Republic]], September 21, 2015
* Kullman, David (1997). ''[http://www.lib.miamioh.edu/epub/tilings/david.pdf The Penrose Tiling at Miami University] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170814145333/http://www.lib.miamioh.edu/epub/tilings/david.pdf |date=2017-08-14 }}'' Presented at the [[Mathematical Association of America]] Ohio Section Meeting [[Shawnee State University]], October 24, 1997
* Lister, David (1995). ''[https://www.britishorigami.org/cp-lister-list/martin-gardner/ Martin Gardner and Paperfolding]'' [[British Origami Society]], February 15, 1995.
* [[MAA FOCUS]] (2010). ''[https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/pubs/focus/FOCUS08-2010_Gardner.pdf Remembering Martin Gardner]'' vol 30 (4), August/September 2010
* MacTutor (2010). ''[http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Gardner.html History of Mathematics archive: Martin Gardner]''
* Malkevitch, Joseph (2014). ''[https://www.ams.org/samplings/feature-column/fc-2014-04 Magical Mathematics – A Tribute to Martin Gardner]'' [[American Mathematical Society]], March 2014
* Martin, Douglas (2010). ''[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/us/24gardner.html Martin Gardner, Puzzler and Polymath, Dies at 95]'' ''[[The New York Times]]'', May 23, 2010
* [http://martin-gardner.org/ Martin Gardner{{snd}}Mathematician] (official website)
* Mirsky, Steve (2010). ''[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scholars-and-others-pay-t/ Scholars and Others Pay Tribute to "Mathematical Games" Columnist Martin Gardner]'' Scientific American, May 24, 2010
* Mulcahy, Colm (2013). ''[https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/celebrations-of-mind-honor-mathe28099s-best-friend-martin-gardner/ Celebrations of Mind Honor Math’s Best Friend, Martin Gardner]'' Scientific American, October 29, 2013
* Mulcahy, Colm (2014). ''[https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-top-10-martin-gardner-scientific-american-articles/?redirect=1 The Top 10 Martin Gardner Scientific American Articles]'' Scientific American, October 21, 2014
* Mulcahy, Colm (2017). ''[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/colm-mulcahy/martin-gardner_b_4125273.html Martin Gardner – The Best Friend Mathematics Ever Had]'' The [[Huffington Post]], January 23, 2014
* [[Ivars Peterson|Peterson, Ivars]] (2014).  ''[https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/pubs/focus/FOCUS101114.pdf Honoring a Century of Martin Gardner]'' in MAA Focus, the newsmagazine of the Mathematical Association of America, Vol. 34, No. 5, Oct/Nov 2014
* [[Jim Propp|Propp, James]] (2015). [https://martin-gardner.org/Testimonials.html#Testi86 Martin Gardner Testimonials] Belmont, MA, July 29, 2015
* Princeton University Press [https://web.archive.org/web/20160531212311/http://press.princeton.edu/quotes/q10066.html Reviews of ''Undiluted Hocus-Pocus: The Autobiography of Martin Gardner'']
* Richards, Dana (2014). ''[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/math-games-of-martin-gardner-still-spur-innovation/ Math Games of Martin Gardner Still Spur Innovation]'' by [[Dana S. Richards]] & Colm Mulcahy, ''Scientific American'', October 1, 2014
* Richards, Dana (2018). ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcjoYvyYkvo Martin Gardner, Annotator]'' G4G13, April 2018 – video
* Shermer, Michael  (1997). [https://web.archive.org/web/20110829062302/http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/10-05-26/ Martin Gardner 1914–2010: Founder of the Modern Skeptical Movement] [[Michael Shermer]] interviews Martin Gardner, [[Skeptic (U.S. magazine)|Skeptic Magazine]], Vol 5, No. 2 (1997)
*  [[David Suzuki|Suzuki, David]] (1996). ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5UPxPsdoTY Mystery and Magic of Mathematics: Martin Gardner and Friends]'' The Nature of Things, March 14, 1996 – video
* Teller (2014). ''[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/books/review/undiluted-hocus-pocus-by-martin-gardner.html?_r=0 ‘Undiluted Hocus-Pocus,’ by Martin Gardner]'' The New York Times: Sunday Book Review, January 3, 2014

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==External links==
{{sister project links|d=Q677706|n=no|commons=Category:Martin Gardner|wikt=no|s=no|v=no|voy=no|mw=no|species=no|m=no|b=no}}
* {{Official website|http://martin-gardner.org/}} – with [http://martin-gardner.org/Awards.html Martin Gardner's Awards] and [https://martin-gardner.org/Appreciations.html Martin Gardner Appreciations]
* [http://www.csicop.org/search?q=martin%20gardner Works by and about Martin Gardner at The Center for Inquiry Libraries]
* {{LCAuth|n79054207|Martin Gardner|170|}}
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{{Martin Gardner}}
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