Martin Gardner
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Martin Gardner was a mathematician and media actor, used in the media industry to play the role of skeptic as gatekeeper of the Science Church, to defend the Theory of Relativity. He was programmed with Wizard of Oz, studied history, literature and philosophy at University of Chicago (like Carl Sagan) and worked for the US Navy. He continued the tradition of 'debunking' of the Society for Psychical Research. He was a member of CIA front False Memory Syndrome Foundation. |
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In 1976 he co-founded the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry with James Randi, BF Skinner (CIA front Esalen), Philip Klass (AAAS, UFO researcher), Isaac Asimov.
He published in its Skeptical Inquirer with Douglas Hofstadter (Stanford, AAAS, American Philosophical Society, Scientific American) and Benjamin Radford.
He also wrote a column on mathematics in Scientific American (Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Stephen Jay Gould, Douglas Hofstadter, Michael Shermer, James Burke, Jonas Salk, Bill Gates,..), published by Springer-Nature (also publisher of Nature).
He contribute to The New York Review of Books (Truman Capote, Robert Lowell, Susan Sontag, Hannah Arendt, WH Auden, JP Sarte, Christopher Hitchens).
He introduced fractals of Mandelbrot, drawings of MC Escher (used in mind control), Penrose tilings (named after Roger Penrose) into public consciousness.
In Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science he discussed Flat Earth theory, Hollow Earth, Immanuel Velikovsky, Fortean Society (Dorothy Parker), Kenneth Arnold, Raymond Palmer, Gerald Heard and the UFO movement, jesuit Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Ignatius Donnelly, Helena Blavatsky, Charles Taze Russell, George Gurdjieff, Aleister Crowley, Edgar Cayce, Rudolf Steiner, Wilhelm Reich, Upton Sinclair,..
He influenced Salvador Dali (paintings of four-dimensional hypercubes), WH Auden and Arthur C Clarke.
Colin Wilson played his antagonist. Gardner criticized Oprah Winfrey for supporting the vaccines cause autism theory.
As a satire he invented characters Dr Matrix and Uriah Fuller (based on Uri Geller). He published in The Sphinx of Harry Houdini's Society for American Magicians. Geller's collaborator Criss Angel was influenced by Houdini and performed at Luxor casino with sphinx at Las Vegas.
He was a friend of magician Dai Vernon, mentor of Ricky Jay (Disney movie The Prestige), Persi Diaconis (Stanford, APS) and Doug Henning (guest in Johnny Carson's show, The Muppets). Vernon often performed at the Magic Castle like Orson Welles and Johnny Carson (show with Uri Geller).
The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry gave him an In Praise of Reason Award.
He wrote the foreword of a book about 4D of Rudy Rucker (St Xavier High School like Tom Cruise, related to GWF Hegel).
Astrological chart
born 10/21/1914, date Kim Kardashian, Amber Rose, Carrie Fisher.
Dom: Sagittarius, Scorpio, Aquarius - Uranus, Neptune, Mars.
Uranus and Jupiter in Aquarius.
died 5/22/2010.
Works
1957 Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science
1959 The Scientific American Book of Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions University of Chicago
1960 The Anotated Alice (Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland)
1962 Relativity for the Million
1964 The Ambidextrous Universe: Mirror Assymetry and Time-Reversed Worlds
1980 David Marks The Psychology of the Psychic (foreword, about Uri Geller, Stargate Project, Rupert Sheldrake)
1983 Wheels, Life and Other Mathematical Amusements
1985 Rudy Rucker The Fourth Dimension (foreword)
1988 Visitors from Oz
1997 HG Wells Country for the Blind (editor)
2000 From the Wandering Jew to William F Buckley Jr
2001 Puzzler's Tribute a Feast for the Mind preface of Arthur C Clarke