Results for 'martin gardner'

Dangerous Women

Second-hand

Spoon Bending

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Spoon bending is the apparent deformation of objects, especially metal cutlery, either without physical force, or with less force than normally necessary. It is a common form of stage magic, and a variety of methods are used to produce the illusion. Spoon bending attracted considerable media attention in the 1970s when some people claimed to have the ability to cause such events by paranormal psychic means. The most notable was Uri Geller, who performed by bending metal spoons as well as metal keys and several other objects and materials. Geller's performances were attributed to stage magic by critics such as James Randi and Martin Gardner.

Mathemagician

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. A mathemagician is a mathematician who is also a magician. The name "mathemagician" was probably first applied to Martin Gardner, but has since been used to describe many mathematician/magicians, including Arthur T. Benjamin, Persi Diaconis, and Raymond Smullyan. Diaconis has suggested that the reason so many mathematicians are magicians is that "inventing a magic trick and inventing a theorem are very similar activities." A great number of self-working mentalism tricks are actually mathemagic. Max Maven often utilizes this type of magic in his performance.

Hexapawn

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Hexapawn is a deterministic two-player game invented by Martin Gardner. It is played on a rectangular board of variable size, for example on a 3×3 board or on a chessboard. On a board of size n×m, each player begins with m pawns, one for each square in the row closest to them. The goal of each player is to advance one of their pawns to the opposite end of the board or to prevent the other player from moving. Hexapawn on the 3×3 board is a solved game; if both players play well, the first player to move will always lose. Also it seems that any player cannot capture all enemy's pawns. Indeed, Gardner specifically constructed it as a game with a small game tree, in order to demonstrate how it could be played by a heuristic AI implemented by a mechanical computer. A variant of this game is octapawn

Martin Gardner

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Martin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature, philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion. He wrote the Mathematical Games column in Scientific American from 1956 to 1981, the Notes of a Fringe-Watcher column in Skeptical Inquirer from 1983 to 2002, and published over 70 books. Gardner, son of a petroleum geologist, grew up in and around Tulsa, Oklahoma. He attended the University of Chicago where he earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1936. Early jobs included reporter on the Tulsa Tribune, writer at the UC Office of Press Relations and case worker in Chicago's Black Belt for the city's Relief Administration. During World War II, he served for several years in the U.S. Navy as a yeoman on board the destroyer escort USS Pope in the Atlantic. His ship was still in the Atlantic when the war came to an end with the surrender of Japan in August 1945

The Ambidextrous Universe

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The Ambidextrous Universe is a popular science book by Martin Gardner covering aspects of symmetry and asymmetry in human culture, science and the wider universe. Originally published in 1964, it underwent revisions in 1969, 1979, 1990 and 2005 (the last two are known as the "Third, revised edition"). Originally titled The Ambidextrous Universe: Mirror Asymmetry and Time-Reversed Worlds, subsequent editions are known as The New Ambidextrous Universe: Symmetry and Asymmetry from Mirror Reflections to Superstrings. The book begins with the subject of mirrors, and from there passes through symmetry in poetry, shapes, art, music, galaxies, suns, planets and wildlife. It then moves into molecular scale physics and how symmetry and asymmetry have evolved from the beginning of life on Earth. There is a chapter on carbon and its versatility, and the last eight chapters concern a problem called the Ozma Problem.