Martin Gardner, 1914–2010

Martin Gardner took his last math class in high school. Yet the mathematical puzzles with which he teased readers of Scientific American for 25 years were so popular that in 1982, three prominent mathematicians dedicated their own book of math puzzles to Gardner, thanking him for bringing “more math to more millions than anyone else.” But puzzles were only one aspect of Gardner’s protean career. He wrote more than 70 books on subjects ranging from religious faith to Lewis Carroll’s coded subtext in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and co-founded a study center devoted to debunking claims of paranormal activity.

Gardner broke into science writing in the 1950s, when he submitted to Scientific American an article on “hexaflexagons”—pieces of paper that, when folded with mathematical logic, resemble a flower in bud. The magazine’s editor was so taken with the effort that he “hired Gardner to produce a regular column on recreational mathematics,” said The Washington Post. It ended up running from 1956 to 1981. Gardner claimed that the column’s success stemmed from his own ignorance of higher mathematics. “It took me so long to understand what I was writing about,” he said, “that I knew how to write in a way that most readers would understand.”

Gardner, who grew up in Tulsa, taught himself to read as a 4-year-old by looking at the words on the page as his mother read to him from L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, said The New York Times. He showed an early flair for magic tricks, puzzles, and chess, and displayed a skeptical turn of mind that later would become his trademark. After graduating from the University of Chicago with a degree in philosophy, he wrote Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, a book that set the tone for much of his work to follow. Mixing humor and ruthless logic, Gardner, for instance, demolished the notion that flying saucers from other planets have visited Earth. He also took on Scientology and self-proclaimed psychic Uri Geller, who claimed to be able to bend spoons with the power of his mind.

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Although an enthusiastic debunker, Gardner avoided the easy trap of writing “worthy books full of righteous indignation, scolding fools for their foolishness and trying to lead them to scientific truth,” said NewScientist.com. Gardner’s books were fun, witty, and full of remarkable characters, like the crackpot philosopher Ray Palmer, “who blamed the world’s ills on degenerate robots called ‘deros.’”

Gardner’s wife, Charlotte, died in 2000. He is survived by two sons and three grandchildren. “I just play all the time,” he said in a 1998 interview, “and am fortunate enough to get paid for it.”