Martin Gardner

The Magic and Mystery of Numbers

By: Scientific American

Narrated by: Kate Mulligan

How many people achieve a cult following because of their writing in mathematics? Only a handful, and Martin Gardner is among the most well-known and well-loved.

Not only did he present a notoriously difficult subject in an engaging and accessible way, but in doing so, he attracted an incredibly broad readership. His correspondents ranged from academics like Roger Penrose and John Horton Conway to artists MC Escher and Salvador Dali to writer Isaac Asimov. His “Mathematical Games” column in Scientific American ran nearly every month for 26 years and was one of the most popular in the magazine’s history.

In this anthology, we strove to create a new “slice” through his wealth of material. Here, we focus on all flavors of numbers, from common integers and negative numbers to figurate numbers and the exotic random number Omega, which can be described but not computed.

Some of these columns are less well-known, but they are no less fun. In true Gardner fashion, they leap from magic and games - as well as art, music, and literature - to flashes of deep mathematical insight. We hope that they will prove as inspirational now as they did to earlier audiences.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2017 Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. Scientific American is a registered trademark of Nature America, Inc. (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing

Shouldn’t’ve been made into audiobook

The product relies far too heavily on bonus material that doesn't come with you on your audio player when driving or jogging. The producer should have thought of this and taken a bit of time to briefly explain the figures.