The No-Sided Professor

by Martin Gardner
The No-Sided Professor
Author: Martin Gardner
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2010-10-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1615926860
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Here is Martin Gardner''s first collection of short stories. Culled from fiction written over the years for such magazines as Esquire and the London Mystery Magazine, The No-Sided Professor is proof that Gardner''s expertise does not stop at his scientific and mathematical works. Only Gardner can infuse short stories with the same masterful charm, wit, and philosophical brio that have brought him legions of fans through his mathematical-puzzle books and investigations into science and pseudoscience. Gardner introduces us to the "No-Sided Professor," Dr. Stanislaw Slapenarski, who by means of a kind of mathematical yoga blips himself and his nemesis into another dimension. In "At the Feet of Karl Klodhopper," Gardner tells an engrossing story of lust and murder in the art world. These and other stories reveal Gardner''s astonishingly wide range of intellectual insight and cultural acumen. The No-Sided Professor is full of tales of fantasy, humor, the bohemian life, topological wizardry, and mystery. All are stamped with the unmistakable seal of a master storyteller.

Fantasia Mathematica

by Clifton Fadiman
Fantasia Mathematica
Author: Clifton Fadiman
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 326
Release: 1997-04-01
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9780387949314
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Clifton Fadiman's classic collection of mathematical stories, essays and anecdotes is now once again available. Ranging from the poignant to the comical via the simply surreal, these selections include writing by Aldous Huxley, Martin Gardner, H.G. Wells, George Gamow, G.H. Hardy, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and many others. Humorous, mysterious, and always entertaining, this collection is sure to bring a smile to the faces of mathematicians and non-mathematicians alike.

Mathematical Puzzle Tales

by Martin Gardner
Mathematical Puzzle Tales
Author: Martin Gardner
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2020-04-06
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1470451786
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Martin Gardner is widely known for his writing on recreational mathematics, not least for the myriad problems he has devised over some 25 years for Scientific American. In this book are 36 of his best brainteasers. These are not simply cunning puzzles, but serve to illustrate the art of the mathematician as problem solver, and their solution draws on ideas from topology, probability, number theory, logic and beyond. Fully worked answers are given, which, in turn, lead to additional problems for the reader. For anybody who likes to solve mathematical problems, this book will be both entertaining and a challenge.

Undiluted Hocus-Pocus

by Martin Gardner
Undiluted Hocus-Pocus
Author: Martin Gardner
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2015-11-03
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0691169691
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The autobiography of the beloved writer who inspired a generation to study math and science Martin Gardner wrote the Mathematical Games column for Scientific American for twenty-five years and published more than seventy books on topics as diverse as magic, religion, and Alice in Wonderland. Gardner's illuminating autobiography is a candid self-portrait by 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 varied and wide-ranging professional pursuits. He 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. Undiluted Hocus-Pocus offers a rare, intimate look at Gardner’s life and work, and the experiences that shaped both.

Left Neglected

by Lisa Genova
Left Neglected
Author: Lisa Genova
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2011-03-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0857202685
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The moving second novel from the author of international hit Still Alice, which explores the life of a woman struck by a brain disorder, Left Neglect 'I think some small part of me knew I was living an unsustainable life. Every now and then, it would whisper, slow down. You don't need all this.' Sarah Nickerson has it all: a high-flying career, a loving husband and children, a second home. But does she have time to enjoy it? Too busy to pay full attention, can she see what's left neglected? One fateful day while driving to work, Sarah looks away from the road for one second too long. In the blink of an eye, her overfull life comes to a screeching halt. In the wake of a devastating accident that affects her body and mind in surprising ways, it's time for her to choose: who does she really want to be?

Portuguese Irregular Verbs

by Alexander McCall Smith
Portuguese Irregular Verbs
Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Publisher: Vintage Canada
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2010-04-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307370372
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A deliciously entertaining new series by the bestselling author of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency The many fans of Precious Ramotswe will find further cause for celebration in the protagonist of Alexander McCall Smith’s irresistibly funny trilogy, the eminent (if shamefully under-read) philologist Professor Dr. Mortiz-Maria von Igelfeld of the Institute at Regensburg. Unnaturally tall, hypersensitive to slights, and oblivious to his own frequent gaucheries, von Igelfeld is engaged in a never-ending quest to win the respect he knows is due him. Portuguese Irregular Verbs follows the Professor from a busman’s holiday researching old Irish obscenities to a flirtation with a desirable lady dentist. In The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs, von Igelfeld practices veterinary medicine without a license, transports relics for a schismatically challenged Coptic prelate and is mobbed by marriage-minded widows on board a Mediterranean cruise ship. In At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances, the final novel in the trilogy, we find our hero suffering the slings of academic intrigue as a visiting fellow at Cambridge, and the slings of outrageous fortune in an eventful Columbian adventure.

Hexaflexagons and Other Mathematical Diversions

by Martin Gardner
Hexaflexagons and Other Mathematical Diversions
Author: Martin Gardner
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2020-10-05
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1470463520
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Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games columns in Scientific American inspired and entertained several generations of mathematicians and scientists. Gardner in his crystal-clear prose illuminated corners of mathematics, especially recreational mathematics, that most people had no idea existed. His playful spirit and inquisitive nature invite the reader into an exploration of beautiful mathematical ideas along with him. These columns were both a revelation and a gift when he wrote them; no one--before Gardner--had written about mathematics like this. They continue to be a marvel. This volume, originally published in 1959, contains the first sixteen columns published in the magazine from 1956-1958. They were reviewed and briefly updated by Gardner for this 1988 edition.