Martin Gardner

This fair and witty appraisal examines some of the crazes and quackeries that have masqueraded as science. Discussions include hollow earth theories; Charles Fort and the Fortean Society; Wilhelm Reich and orgone sex energy; dianetics; flying saucers; food and medical fads; much more.

Excellent guide to dozens of mystifying acts of deception provides aspiring magicians with all the information they need to perform professional-quality tricks. Step-by-step instructions and nearly 200 easy-to-follow diagrams show how to make cards vanish and reappear, get coins to pass through solid objects, make articles mysteriously travel from one location to another, more.

The 126 poems in this superb collection of 19th- and 20th-century British and American verse range from the impassioned "Renascence" of Edna St. Vincent Millay to Edward Lear's whimsical "The Owl and the Pussycat" and James Whitcomb Riley's homespun "When the Frost Is on the Punkin." Famous poets such as Wordsworth, Tennyson, Whitman, and Frost are well-represented, as are less well-known poets such as John McCrae ("In Flanders Fields") and Ernest...

Ready to have your mind boggled? World-famous puzzle master Martin Gardner has provided more than 100 ways to give your little gray cells a workout. These unusual puzzles, many of them original, include palindromes, anagrams, rebuses, and logic puzzles. Their whimsical illustrations contain occasional clues and plenty of humor. If you're stumped, you can consult the back of the book for complete solutions. Martin Gardner was renowned for his "Mathematical...

Since the publication of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity in 1905, the discovery of such astronomical phenomena as quasars, pulsars, and black holes - all intimately connected to relativity - has provoked a tremendous upsurge of interest in the subject. This volume, a revised version of Martin Gardner's earlier Relativity for the Million, brings this fascinating topic up to date. Witty, perceptive, and easily accessible to the general reader,...

Why do card tricks work? How can magicians do astonishing feats of mathematics mentally? Why do stage "mind-reading" tricks work? As a rule, we simply accept these tricks and "magic" without recognizing that they are really demonstrations of strict laws based on probability, sets, number theory, topology, and other branches of mathematics. This is the first book-length study of this fascinating branch of recreational mathematics. Written by one of...

The noted expert and longtime author of Scientific American's Mathematical Games column selects 70 of his favorite "short" puzzles. Enthusiasts can challenge their skills with such mind-bogglers as The Returning Explorer, The Mutilated Chessboard, Scrambled Box Tops, Bronx vs. Brooklyn, and dozens more involving logic and basic math. Complete solutions included.

When Alice tumbles down, down, down a rabbit-hole one hot summer's afternoon in pursuit of a White Rabbit she finds herself in Wonderland. And there begin the fantastical adventures that will see her experiencing extraordinary changes in size, swimming in a pool of her own tears and attending the very maddest of tea parties. For Wonderland is no ordinary place and the characters that populate it are quite unlike anybody young Alice has ever met before....