Martin Gardner Quotes

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All mathematicians share... a sense of amazement over the infinite depth and the mysterious beauty and usefulness of mathematics.

Martin Gardner

Teaching, Math, Depth

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If God creates a world of particles and waves, dancing in obedience to mathematical and physical laws, who are we to say that he cannot make use of those laws to cover the surface of a small planet with living creatures?

Martin Gardner

Law, Dancing, Religion

Martin Gardner (2005). “The New Ambidextrous Universe: Symmetry and Asymmetry from Mirror Reflections to Superstrings”, p.136, Courier Corporation

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Mathematics is not only real, but it is the only reality.

Martin Gardner

Real, Math, Neutrons

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The computers are not replacing mathematicians; they are breeding them.

Martin Gardner

Computer, Breeding, Mathematician

Martin Gardner (1961). “The 2nd Scientific American book of mathematical puzzles & diversions, a new selection”

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The universe is almost like a huge magic trick and scientists are trying to figure out how it does what it does.

Martin Gardner

Magic, Trying, Doe

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As I have often said, electrons and gerbils don't cheat. People do.

Martin Gardner

People, Cheat, Said

Martin Gardner (1999). “The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener”, p.64, Macmillan

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If you ask me to tell you anything about the nature of what lies beyond the phaneron… my answer is “How should I know?”… I am not dismayed by ultimate mysteries… I can no more grasp what is behind such questions as my cat can understand what is behind the clatter I make while I type this paragraph.

Martin Gardner

Lying, Cat, Answers

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Mathematics is not only real, but it is the only reality. That is that entire universe is made of matter, obviously. And matter is made of particles. It's made of electrons and neutrons and protons. So the entire universe is made out of particles. Now what are the particles made out of They're not made out of anything. The only thing you can say about the reality of an electron is to cite its mathematical properties. So there's a sense in which matter has completely dissolved and what is left is just a mathematical structure.

Martin Gardner

Real, Math, Justice

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Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-and-Chips sign' have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?

Martin Gardner

Quotation Marks, Want, Chips

Martin Gardner (2006). “Aha! A Two Volume Collection: Aha! Gotcha Aha! Insight”, MAA

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Consider a cow. A cow doesn't have the problem-solving skill of a chimpanzee, which has discovered how to get termites out of the ground by putting a stick into a hole. Evolution has developed the brain's ability to solve puzzles, and at the same time has produced in our brain a pleasure of solving problems.

Martin Gardner

Science, Skills, Brain

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[T]he more the public is confused, the easier it falls prey to doctrines of pseudo-science which may at some future date recieve the backing of politically powerful groups [...]a renaissance of German quasi-science paralleled the rise of Hitler.

Martin Gardner

Powerful, Confused, Fall

Martin Gardner (2012). “Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science”, p.7, Courier Corporation

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The sudden hunch, the creative leap of mind that "sees" in a flash how to solve a problem in a simple way, is something quite different from general intelligence.

Martin Gardner

Simple, Design, Creative

Martin Gardner (2006). “Aha! A Two Volume Collection: Aha! Gotcha Aha! Insight”, p.176, MAA

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Biographical history, as taught in our public schools, is still largely a history of boneheads; ridiculous kings and queens, paranoid political leaders, compulsive voyagers, ignorant general the flotsam and jetsam of historical currents. The men who radically altered history, the great scientists and mathematicians, are seldom mentioned, if at all.

Martin Gardner

Queens, Kings, Teaching

"Adventures Of a Mathematician" by Martin Gardner, www.nytimes.com. May 9, 1976.

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There are, and always have been, destructive pseudo-scientific notions linked to race and religion; these are the most widespread and damaging. Hopefully, educated people can succeed in shedding light into these areas of prejudice and ignorance, for as Voltaire once said: "Men will commit atrocities as long as they believe absurdities."

Martin Gardner

Believe, Ignorance, Men

"Exclusive Interview with Martin Gardner". Interview with Bernard Sussman, "Southwind" (Miami-Dade Junior College), Volume 3, No. 1, Fall 1968.

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The last level of metaphor in the Alice books is this: that life, viewed rationally and without illusion, appears to be a nonsense tale told by an idiot mathematician.

Martin Gardner

Book, Levels, Lasts

Introduction to "The Annotated Alice. The Definitive Edition" by Lewis Carroll, 1999.

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As Bertrand Russell once wrote, two plus two is four even in the interior of the sun.

Martin Gardner

Writing, Science, Two

Martin Gardner (2009). “When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish: And Other Speculations About This and That”, p.124, Macmillan

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The last level of metaphor in the Alice books is this: that life, viewed rationally and without illusion, appears to be a nonsense tale told by an idiot mathematician. At the heart of things science finds only a mad, never-ending quadrille of Mock Turtle Waves and Gryphon Particles. For a moment the waves and particles dance in grotesque, inconceivably complex patterns capable of reflecting on their own absurdity.

Martin Gardner

Book, Heart, Turtles

"The Annotated Alice". Book by Martin Gardner (Introduction), 1960.

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One day, when I was doing well in class and had finished my lessons, I was sitting there trying to analyze the game of tic-tac-toe... The teacher came along and snatched my papers on which I had been doodling... She did not realize that analyzing tic-tac-toe can lead into dozens of non-trivial mathematical questions.

Martin Gardner

Teacher, Science, Games

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A surprising proportion of mathematicians are accomplished musicians. Is it because music and mathematics share patterns that are beautiful?

Martin Gardner

Beautiful, Education, Musician

"Engaging. Interactive. Informative". The Dover Math and Science Newsletter, www.doverpublications.com. May 16, 2011.

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Politicians, real-estate agents, used-car salesmen, and advertising copy-writers are expected to stretch facts in self-serving directions, but scientists who falsify their results are regarded by their peers as committing an inexcusable crime. Yet the sad fact is that the history of science swarms with cases of outright fakery and instances of scientists who unconsciously distorted their work by seeing it through lenses of passionately held beliefs.

Martin Gardner

Real, Science, Self

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A god whose creation is so imperfect that he must be continually adjusting it to make it work properly seems to me a god of relatively low order, hardly worthy of any worship.

Martin Gardner

Order, Religion, Adjusting

Martin Gardner (2005). “The New Ambidextrous Universe: Symmetry and Asymmetry from Mirror Reflections to Superstrings”, p.136, Courier Corporation

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Debunking bad science should be constant obligation of the science community, even if it takes time away from serious research or seems to be a losing battle. One takes comfort from the fact there is no Gresham's laws in science. In the long run, good science drives out bad.

Martin Gardner

Running, Law, Long

"The Night Is Large: Collected Essays, 1938-1995". Book by Martin Gardner (Introduction to Part III "Pseudoscience", p. 171), 1996.

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In no other branch of mathematics is it so easy for experts to blunder as in probability theory.

Martin Gardner

Education, Math, Probability Theory

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Let the Bible be the Bible. It's not about science. It's not accurate history. It is a grab bag of religious fantasies written by many authors. Some of its myths, like the Star of Bethlehem, are very beautiful. Others are dull and ugly. Some express lofty ideals, such as the parables of Jesus. Others are morally disgusting.

Martin Gardner

Beautiful, Religious, Jesus

Martin Gardner (2001). “Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?: Debunking Pseudoscience”, p.45, W. W. Norton & Company

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Mathemagical mathematics combines the beauty of mathematical structure with the entertainment value of a trick.

Martin Gardner

Entertainment, Mathematics, Structure

"Mathematics, Magic and Mystery". Book by Martin Gardner (p. 9), 1956.

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Born: October 21, 1914
Died: May 22, 2010
Occupation: Science writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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