[HN Gopher] Math and puzzle fans find magic in Martin Gardner's ...
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Math and puzzle fans find magic in Martin Gardner's legacy
Author : ColinWright
Score : 58 points
Date : 2024-10-30 09:51 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| ykonstant wrote:
| Another fantastic resource is Boris Kordemsky's book The Moscow
| Puzzles:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Moscow-Puzzles-Mathematical-Recreatio...
| I_complete_me wrote:
| I think it was this book where I first saw the puzzle:
| Does New Year's Day fall more often on a Saturday or a Sunday?
|
| Such a simple puzzle with to (then) me such depth of knowledge
| to uncover the answer.
| bumbledraven wrote:
| I don't see it there:
| https://archive.org/details/boris-a.-kordemsky-the-moscow-
| pu...
|
| Do you recall the solution? It seems like a tricky problem.
| No approach occurs to me aside from a brute force analysis of
| the 400 year Gregorian calendar cycle, accounting for the
| complete leap year rules (under which, e.g., 1900 was not a
| leap year but 2000 was).
| tromp wrote:
| Unless you're considering a limited date range, it should
| fall equally often on both in the limit since neither 365 nor
| 366 (leap year) are multiples of 7.
| madcaptenor wrote:
| So you'd think that, and it is approximately true. But the
| calendar repeats every 400 years (there are 97 leap years
| in 400, and 497 is a multiple of 7). And 400 isn't a
| multiple of 7, so you can't have it work out exactly.
| jeifneioka wrote:
| Don't forget Raymond Smullyan.
| anthk wrote:
| Recreational math and games boosted both computing and science.
|
| Unix was born to play games. And Curses was born for Rogue.
| beardyw wrote:
| All of his Scientific American articles were available as a CD I
| have. Not sure if they are online yet.
|
| As a youngster they were a source of wonder to me.
| glimshe wrote:
| What is this CD? I like old compilations.
|
| Edit: found it, it's called "Martin Gardner s Mathematical
| Games: The Entire Collection of His Scientific American
| Columns"
| Jtsummers wrote:
| https://bookstore.ams.org/view?ProductCode=GARDNER-SET
|
| Cambridge University Press also started on a project to revise
| and re-release all of it but that stalled out, they published
| four books.
|
| https://www.cambridge.org/us/universitypress/subjects/mathem...
| smath wrote:
| Gardeners books and sci-am columns are an amazing resource to get
| kids and teens interested in math.
|
| In the present time, I find Simon Singh's parallel.co.uk has been
| doing interesting work holding weekly math circles for kids -
| deftly engaging kids with mathematical ideas. I attend a circle
| with my 9 yo every Sunday.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| > Simon Singh's parallel.co.uk
|
| Perhaps you mean https://parallel.org.uk/ ?
|
| I'm curious what the age range is? My son is 8.
| pvg wrote:
| https://archive.is/hyF0u
| vundercind wrote:
| His annotated _Alice in Wonderland_ is really nice, too.
| zahlman wrote:
| For clarity: the article is written today, but Martin Gardner
| died in 2010.
| masfuerte wrote:
| > The question is, can you think of a single shape that looks
| like a triangle from one side, a circle from a second side and a
| square from the third side?
|
| He goes on to say that it resembles a household item. I can
| visualise the shape, but I can't think of anything that it looks
| like. Does anyone know what item it is?
|
| There's a picture here:
|
| https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1947363/is-there-a-...
| schoen wrote:
| It looks like lipstick to me. Or possibly the end of a
| screwdriver or chisel.
| parlortricks wrote:
| Looks like an interchangable end to a cake frosting spatula.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| Was thinking an axehead
| whatshisface wrote:
| This one was my favorite:
|
| "A carpenter, working with a buzz saw, wishes to cut a wooden
| cube, three inches on a side, into 27 one-inch cubes. He can do
| this job easily by making six cuts through the cube, keeping the
| pieces together in the cube shape. Can he reduce the number of
| necessary cuts by rearranging the pieces after each cut? Either
| show how or prove that it's impossible."
|
| - Martin Gardener
| madcaptenor wrote:
| Lbh arrq fvk phgf orpnhfr lbh arrq gb rkcbfr rirel snpr bs gur
| prageny phor.
| acomjean wrote:
| There is Gathering for Gardner non profit.
|
| for recreational math:
|
| https://www.gathering4gardner.org/
|
| They have conferences and talks and post on youtube:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/G4GCelebration
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