George -- thanks for passing on the sad news. I wanted Martin to live forever. It's literally true that I never would have been lured into mathematics from physics if I hadn't been pleasantly distracted by Martin's Scientific American columns. (An unkind view of my switching would be that 'physics' gain was mathematics' loss'.) I met Martin only once. I spent a very satisfying half-day with him at his home in Hastings (or was it Dobbs Ferry?) in the late 70s. I'll perhaps tell you that story some other time (when we next meet). Alan On Sat, May 22, 2010 at 10:19 PM, George W. Hart <george@georgehart.com>wrote:
(Not fun.)
It is with great sadness that I report Martin Gardner died today.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/05/22/martin-gardner-191...
When I visited him last October in Norman, OK, he was sharp, alert, and happy to offer a list of great ideas he thought would be good for the Museum of Mathematics. He demonstrated some card tricks, calculator tricks, and a rope illusion. He told a number of interesting stories about his life and said he was starting to work on his autobiography --- a book project which he predicted would take three years to complete. I thought that it took enormous vision to start a three-year project at the age of 95 and am sad that it will never be finished.
George Hart http://momath.org http://georgehart.com
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