-------- Original Message --------
Dear Andrea: I envy your personal contacts with Martin Gardner!
A sign of his fame & favor among mathematicians is that the MAA
(Mathematical Association of America) have re-published a complete set
of his recreational works.
Our emails have crossed, alas! One of the many curses of email
discourse. You may have misread my ambiguously-worded point on MG's
modesty. It is, indeed, one of his most endearing characteristics. The
AmSci lay readership would tend to think of him as a "mathematician"
whereas MG is aware of the gap between the various levels subsumed by
that generic term. Damnitall, it's hard enough to give a universally
agreed definition of "mathematics," one of the least controversial
being the recursive "Mathematics is what Mathematicians DO!"
(Compare: "Poems are what Poets write?")
The levels I mentioned can't be fully explained by words such as
"recreational," "amateur" (no longer meaning just "lover!") or
"professional." Many in the former two (overlapping) categories have
achieved thrones in the Pantheon. (Fermat is the supreme example of
the immortal "amateur.") The key is making what is considered some
significant "generalizations" (higher or new abstractions) rather than
producing pretty, amusing variations on familiar themes (a common
attribute of recreational puzzles and tricks). It's rather touching,
but typical, to hear MG refer to himself as a "lucky amateur."
He was/is always trying to inspire a love for the higher branches that
lead on (hopefully) from all those card-tricks and river-crossing
challenges.
Meanwhile, most of us with any pretensions to mathematical
"professionalism" (via degrees and publications) forever languish in
the shadows of the truly greats. There are no Nobel Prizes for
Mathematics although Mathematicians have won Nobel Prizes! Our
equivalent nirvana is the Fields Medal, which has the strange
limitation that you have to be under the age of 40. Oops, too late.
Thanks again for your instructive comments. I plan to re-read his
Ambidextrous Universe and then re-re-read VN's LATH. And then, of
course, MG's next ten books!!
PS: BB's quote from Ada in TAY (p 465) spells "Martin Gardner"
CORRECTLY, that is to say INCORRECTLY, in view of VN's misspelling!
Help!
I am the shadow of the spellchuck slain
Falling from the chimney stack again.
Symbols and signs flash all the way.
Was that a GARDENER or a GARDNER, pray?
(Canto 666, Failed Power, (c) 2009 skb)
CTaH