Martin Gardner has passed away. I know I am not the only person in operations research who was inspired by Gardner’s Mathematical Games columns in Scientific American. I have a strong memory of whiling away long high school physics classes reading Gardner’s columns (and thankful that patient and insightful physics teacher had a stack of Scientific Americans and did not mind my lack of attention to his teaching). A large number of the columns were really about operations research problems: “What is the best way to do this?” “How few moves are needed to accomplish that?” It is through his columns that I understood the breadth and beauty of mathematics, and how that world was accessible even to a high school student. And that high school students and professional mathematicians could work on the same problem and each have something to contribute.
When I went to university, it took me some time to find the type of mathematics that inspired what Gardner inspired. I found it in operations research, and I am thankful for Martin Gardner for showing me what to look for.
I like Douglas Hofstadter’s comment in his panegyric to Gardner (http://bit.ly/cxzAQE):
Randy Cassingham’s “Honorary Unsubscribe” this week is Martin Gardner: http://www.honoraryunsubscribe.com/martin_gardner.html.