Martin Gardner 95
Martin Gardner was 95 last week and we will celebrate him with a few quotes and problems this week. Martin Gardner wrote a column in Scientific American on recreational mathematics from 1956 to 1981 and has published more than 70 books, the last one last week.
I wrote for 4.5 years a recreational math column in a Scandinavian monthly journal called Fakta from 1988 to 1992. Most of the problems were ‘inspired’ by Gardner’s columns, as his column, was inspired by problems from great puzzlists like Sam Lloyd and Henry Dudeney and input from knowledgeable readers and mathematicians.
When i started this blog I again copied problems from Gardner, and when they ran out, I found problem sites on the Net which I give credit to when I am inspired by them. It bears repeating that the best part of this blog are the comments, false or correct ones, submitted by you, the reader.
Winnie the Pooh is a bear with a small brain. I have one thing in common with him and I am not a bear. To illustrate: last week I went to Ko Chang an island close to the border with Cambodia. ‘Chang’ means elephant in Thai, but only last week I came to think of that Hsiang Ch’i, the chess played in China, must mean ‘the elephant game’ and that ‘Hsiang’ must mean ‘elephant’ in Chinese (Mandarin?). Yesterday I returned to Ban Chang, the town where I currently live, and then it struck me. I have lived for a year and a half in the ‘town of elephants’ without knowing it.