Martin Gardner, James Randi e Persi Diaconis
Princeton University Press | 2013 | 289 páginas | rar - pdf | 2,7 Mb
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Martin Gardner wrote the Mathematical Games column forScientific American for twenty-five years and published more than seventy books on topics as diverse as magic, philosophy, religion, pseudoscience, and Alice in Wonderland. His informal, recreational approach to mathematics delighted countless readers and inspired many to pursue careers in mathematics and the sciences. Gardner's illuminating autobiography is a disarmingly candid self-portrait of the man evolutionary theorist Stephen Jay Gould called our "single brightest beacon" for the defense of rationality and good science against mysticism and anti-intellectualism.Gardner takes readers from his childhood in Oklahoma to his college days at the University of Chicago, his service in the navy, and his varied and wide-ranging professional pursuits. Before becoming a columnist for Scientific American, he was a caseworker in Chicago during the Great Depression, a reporter for the Tulsa Tribune, an editor for Humpty Dumpty, and a short-story writer for Esquire, among other jobs. Gardner shares colorful anecdotes about the many fascinating people he met and mentored, and voices strong opinions on the subjects that matter to him most, from his love of mathematics to his uncompromising stance against pseudoscience. For Gardner, our mathematically structured universe is undiluted hocus-pocus--a marvelous enigma, in other words.
Contents
Foreword: Magic, Mathematics, and Mysterians, by Persi Diaconis xi
Preface xxiii
Prologue: I Am a Mysterian xxv
1 Earliest Memories 1
2 Lee School 10
3 Tulsa Central High, I 21
4 Central High, II 28
5 Hutchins and Adler 40
6 Richard McKeon 47
7 I Lose My Faith 53
8 Chicago, I 62
9 Chicago, II 76
10 I Become a Journalist 88
11 Mother and Dad 98
12 The Navy, I 111
13 The Navy, II 119
PHOTO ESSAY follows page 124
14 Esquire and Humpty 125
15 Scientific American 134
16 Pseudoscience 150
17 Math and Magic Friends 160
18 Charlotte 173
19 Bob and Betty 185
20 God 191
21 My Philosophy 195
Afterword: My Most Elegant Friend . . . , by James Randi 209
Index 215
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