Martin Gardner, RIP
He had been scheduled to appear by video link at the upcoming The Amazing Meeting 8 in Las Vegas, where a number of other skeptical old timers will be appearing on discussion panels. His death is a great loss.
I never met Gardner, but was first introduced to his work reading his "Mathematical Games" column in the late 70's, and then his Fads and Fallacies and Skeptical Inquirer columns. Gardner, Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan, and James Randi were the first major figures I identified as skeptical role models. One of the great honors of my life was receiving the Martin Gardner Award for Best Skeptical Critic from the Skeptics Society in 1996.
A Martin Gardner documentary that is part of "The Nature of Things" may be found online, and Scientific American has republished online its December 1995 profile of Gardner. Here's a transcript of a February 1979 telephone interview between Martin Gardner and five mathematicians (thanks to Anthony Barcellos for transcribing it and bringing it to my attention in the comments below).
Various tributes:
- James Randi
- Phil Plait
- Wendy Grossman
- Richard Dawkins
- Douglas Hofstadter
- Jeff Hecht (New Scientist CultureLab blog)
- Daniel Loxton
- Chris French
- George Hansen
- The Economist
- A tribute in Spanish, with numerous links to other Martin Gardner tributes
2 comments:
Rest in Peace Martin Gardner. You will be missed.
I have posted a transcript of a long 1979 interview with Martin Gardner here.
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