4 ms·

Martin Gardner, puzzle master extraordinaire

76 points by Bzomak 12y ago

leeoniya 12y ago
i've made that dragon cutout illusion, it is indescribably effective. make sure you look at it with one eye and maybe in lower lighting where the seams arent as visible. here are all the different color cutouts (there's a cat and dog one too): http://goo.gl/T05Oct http://goo.gl/T05Oct
jlees 12y ago
Lovely article with some interesting puzzles near the bottom (and top). When I was young, Martin Gardner's puzzle books, along with Raymond Smullyan's 'What Is The Name Of This Book?'[1], introduced me to logic and to the fact that mathematics could be fun - something that was very influential in going on to study maths and computer science. I thoroughly recommend checking them out if you haven't already. [1] http://www.amazon.com/What-Name-This-Book-Recreational/dp/0486481980 http://www.amazon.com/What-Name-This-Book-Recreational/dp/04...
- zem 12y ago
  for me it was gardner, and yakov perelman's "mathematics can be fun". i still mourn that the latter went out of print and has all but vanished.
  - vanderZwan 12y ago
    Archive.org to the rescue! https://archive.org/details/MathematicsCanBeFun-1 https://archive.org/details/MathematicsCanBeFun-1 (Offtopic: honestly, I love that website and the work they do. My personal favourite find there is a full copy of "On The Spiritual In Art" by Kandinsky. Reading his thoughts behind his artworks is so much more valuable in bringing his artworks to life than listening to rambling art critics.)
    - zem 12y ago
      wow, i've been looking on and off for years hoping someone had finally put that online. thanks for the pointer!!
    - gphilip 12y ago
      Rough translation of the Preface on page 4 by the person who scanned the book. The preface is written (mostly) in Malayalam [1], the language of the state of Kerala [2] in India: I bought this book in 1986 for 50 Rupees [3]. Since it was a great book, I used to read it often, and many of my friends used to borrow it. Somebody borrowed it in 2007, and I never got it back. I searched the entire world for a copy, new or old, cheap or expensive .... I couldn't find one. Then a friend told me that if there is a copy anywhere in the world then he would buy it for me, no matter the price. He heard that it was available with Abe(?) Books in the U.S for $86, and ordered a copy. I waited for it to arrive ...... Then I got the regret message "Your consignment has been missed during transit, and we have no additional copy. Your payment will be redeemed however." I kept up my search. Then I got to know that a person in Koyilandy [4] had a copy, and I took a laptop and a scanner and journeyed from one end of Kerala to the other to reach there. It took 7 hours to scan the the entire book. I converted the entire corpus into text and edited it to make it identical to the original text, and added all the line drawings using CorelDraw to get it to its current form. If you ever get your hands on this, then keep in mind that so much effort went into its making. Shouldn't I have done at least this much in return for the kindness which my good friend showed me, in offering to buy the book for me even at an exorbitant price? I offer this completed scan first to him, like a gift of the Magi [5]. I look back and think, was it worth it? Yes, absolutely. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayalam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayalam [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala [3] A significant sum in those days. A good meal could be had for 5 Rupees or less in those days. [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyilandy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyilandy [5] He doesn't say "gift of the Magi" in so many words, but "a gift of a piece of a commonly found plant in return for a piece of broken slate pencil", but I guess the idea is somewhat similar.
zcarter 12y ago
If anyone is looking for a starting point to Gardner's vast works, I highly recommend "Aha! Insight."
- zem 12y ago
  "mathematical magic show" is another very good one; it's somewhat thicker than most of his collections, and spans a nicely eclectic set of advanced topics.
diziet 12y ago
There is an interesting kind of a puzzle / challenge where a set of objects is presented that follows some certain rule. The rule can be arbitrary -- these objects are all circles, these objects are in the top portion of the box, these objects are pictures of cats, etc. The objective is to identify the rule in the set given, that does not fit any of the objects in another set (also given) . I can't recall or be able to find the name of this kind of puzzle, though! Edit: They are called Bongard problems. http://www.foundalis.com/res/diss_research.html http://www.foundalis.com/res/diss_research.html
- andrewl 12y ago
  That reminds me a bit of the Set card game: http://www.amazon.com/Set-Family-Game-Visual-Perception/dp/B00000IV34/ http://www.amazon.com/Set-Family-Game-Visual-Perception/dp/B...
  - jameshart 12y ago
    Along those lines, you might want to check out the card game 'Eleusis', which was written about by Martin Gardner: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusis_(card_game) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusis_(card_game)
ozh 12y ago
This article made me discover thinkfun.com (for the dragon stuff) and, HOLY WOW, that site is fricking awesome when you're brainstorming for kids' christmas. Don't miss that.

76 points by Bzomak 12y ago

i've made that dragon cutout illusion, it is indescribably effective. make sure you look at it with one eye and maybe in lower lighting where the seams arent as visible. here are all the different color cutouts (there's a cat and dog one too): http://goo.gl/T05Oct http://goo.gl/T05Oct

jlees 12y ago

Lovely article with some interesting puzzles near the bottom (and top). When I was young, Martin Gardner's puzzle books, along with Raymond Smullyan's 'What Is The Name Of This Book?'[1], introduced me to logic and to the fact that mathematics could be fun - something that was very influential in going on to study maths and computer science. I thoroughly recommend checking them out if you haven't already. [1] http://www.amazon.com/What-Name-This-Book-Recreational/dp/0486481980 http://www.amazon.com/What-Name-This-Book-Recreational/dp/04...

zem 12y ago
for me it was gardner, and yakov perelman's "mathematics can be fun". i still mourn that the latter went out of print and has all but vanished.
- vanderZwan 12y ago
  Archive.org to the rescue! https://archive.org/details/MathematicsCanBeFun-1 https://archive.org/details/MathematicsCanBeFun-1 (Offtopic: honestly, I love that website and the work they do. My personal favourite find there is a full copy of "On The Spiritual In Art" by Kandinsky. Reading his thoughts behind his artworks is so much more valuable in bringing his artworks to life than listening to rambling art critics.)
  - zem 12y ago
    wow, i've been looking on and off for years hoping someone had finally put that online. thanks for the pointer!!
  - gphilip 12y ago
    Rough translation of the Preface on page 4 by the person who scanned the book. The preface is written (mostly) in Malayalam [1], the language of the state of Kerala [2] in India: I bought this book in 1986 for 50 Rupees [3]. Since it was a great book, I used to read it often, and many of my friends used to borrow it. Somebody borrowed it in 2007, and I never got it back. I searched the entire world for a copy, new or old, cheap or expensive .... I couldn't find one. Then a friend told me that if there is a copy anywhere in the world then he would buy it for me, no matter the price. He heard that it was available with Abe(?) Books in the U.S for $86, and ordered a copy. I waited for it to arrive ...... Then I got the regret message "Your consignment has been missed during transit, and we have no additional copy. Your payment will be redeemed however." I kept up my search. Then I got to know that a person in Koyilandy [4] had a copy, and I took a laptop and a scanner and journeyed from one end of Kerala to the other to reach there. It took 7 hours to scan the the entire book. I converted the entire corpus into text and edited it to make it identical to the original text, and added all the line drawings using CorelDraw to get it to its current form. If you ever get your hands on this, then keep in mind that so much effort went into its making. Shouldn't I have done at least this much in return for the kindness which my good friend showed me, in offering to buy the book for me even at an exorbitant price? I offer this completed scan first to him, like a gift of the Magi [5]. I look back and think, was it worth it? Yes, absolutely. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayalam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayalam [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala [3] A significant sum in those days. A good meal could be had for 5 Rupees or less in those days. [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyilandy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyilandy [5] He doesn't say "gift of the Magi" in so many words, but "a gift of a piece of a commonly found plant in return for a piece of broken slate pencil", but I guess the idea is somewhat similar.

zcarter 12y ago

If anyone is looking for a starting point to Gardner's vast works, I highly recommend "Aha! Insight."

zem 12y ago
"mathematical magic show" is another very good one; it's somewhat thicker than most of his collections, and spans a nicely eclectic set of advanced topics.

diziet 12y ago

There is an interesting kind of a puzzle / challenge where a set of objects is presented that follows some certain rule. The rule can be arbitrary -- these objects are all circles, these objects are in the top portion of the box, these objects are pictures of cats, etc. The objective is to identify the rule in the set given, that does not fit any of the objects in another set (also given) . I can't recall or be able to find the name of this kind of puzzle, though! Edit: They are called Bongard problems. http://www.foundalis.com/res/diss_research.html http://www.foundalis.com/res/diss_research.html

andrewl 12y ago
That reminds me a bit of the Set card game: http://www.amazon.com/Set-Family-Game-Visual-Perception/dp/B00000IV34/ http://www.amazon.com/Set-Family-Game-Visual-Perception/dp/B...
- jameshart 12y ago
  Along those lines, you might want to check out the card game 'Eleusis', which was written about by Martin Gardner: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusis_(card_game) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusis_(card_game)

ozh 12y ago

This article made me discover thinkfun.com (for the dragon stuff) and, HOLY WOW, that site is fricking awesome when you're brainstorming for kids' christmas. Don't miss that.