MYSTERIES OF THE EQUILATERAL TRIANGLE - HIKARI Ltd

182 Biographical Vignettes
meeting) but broke it off, accusing Loyd of plagiarism. His hobbies, other
than puzzling, included billiards, bowling and, especially, croquet, and he was
a skilled pianist and organist. A selection of his puzzles are considered in
Recreations 2-5 of Chapter 4. He died at his home in Lewes, Sussex, aged 73.
Vignette 45 (Martin Gardner: 1914-2010).
For 25 years Martin Gardner wrote “Mathematical Games and Recreations”,
a monthly column for Scientific American magazine. (An anthology
of these columns is available in [137].) He was the author of more than 70
books, the vast majority of which deal with mathematical topics. He was born
and grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He earned a degree in philosophy from University
of Chicago and also began graduate studies there. He served in the
U.S. Navy during World War II as ship’s secretary aboard the destroyer escort
USS Pope. For many years, he lived in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York (on
Euclid Avenue!) and earned his living as a freelance writer, although in the
early 1950’s he was editor of Humpty Dumpty Magazine. In 1979, he semiretired
and moved to Henderson, North Carolina. In 2002, he returned home
to Norman, Oklahoma. Some of his more notable contributions to Recreational
Mathematics are discussed in Property 22 of Chapter 2 and Recreation 20 of
Chapter 4. Despite not being a “professional” mathematician, the American
Mathematical Society awarded him the Steele Prize in 1987, in recognition of
the generations of mathematicians inspired by his writings. The Mathematical
Association of America has honored him for his contributions by holding
a special session on Mathematics related to his work at its annual meeting in
1982 and by making him an Honorary Member of the Association. He was
also an amateur magician thereby making him a bona fide Mathemagician!
He died at a retirement home in Norman, aged 95.