[snarks_when_bored]

Martin Gardner has written lots of fine books and articles on mathematical and related subjects, and he's met lots and lots of famous people, mathematicians and otherwise. His tales of his personal encounters with some of those people are fun to hear.

The interview also touches on a variety of significant topics that have been discussed on FR threads, for example, mathematical Platonism, and creationism.

What I've posted is a fairly straightforward HTML hack-by-hand of the PDF-format interview available on the American Mathematical Society website:

"Interview with Martin Gardner" (PDF-format only)

I recommend downloading the PDF file for the superb illustrations.

[snarks_when_bored]

Ping

[MilspecRob]

One of the best reads I've had here in a few days , Thanks!

[stands2reason]

Thanks for posting this. I adore Martin Gardner -- I learned a tremendous amount from him.

[RightWhale]

This is great! It is interesting to know something about a mathematician besides his theorem. Russell and Carnap were in the Vienna Circle. Goedel destroyed positivism, but positivism ignored that and spread widely after the Vienna Circle broke up after its founder was assassinated.

[Kirkwood]

"But I didn’t take any math. My knowledge of math is at a very low level. I go up to calculus, and beyond that I don’t understand any of the papers that are being written. "

I am stunned by this.

[KC_for_Freedom]

The second article I sold them was on hexaflexagons. They had been invented by a group of graduate students at Princeton, including, of all people, Richard Feynman.

Fascinating.

[Falconspeed]

Thank you for the excellent article.

[Gumlegs]

Snarks, thanks for posting! I love Martin Gardner's work and have several of his books on my shelf.

And thanks for the ping, PH.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science

One of the best books on science ever. I read this when it came out and I read all of Gardner's columns until he retired. No one else has ever made mathematics so much fun.