Gary Antonick ( ; born February 11, 1963) is an American journalist and recreational mathematician who for many years wrote a puzzle-based column called "Numberplay" for the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

Education and career

Antonick has a BS in Engineering from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

and an MBA from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

.Gary Antonick
Stanford University Human Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research Institute

Numberplay

From December 2009 to October 2016 Antonick wrote the puzzle themed "Numberplay" column for ''The New York Times''.

' Gary Antonick, New York Times, October 31, 2016. Outgoing writer of The Times’s Numberplay column, shares a lesson learned from seven years of puzzle-solving. The puzzles generally involved math or logic problems.About numberplay, the puzzle suite for math lovers of all ages
by Gary Antonick, The New York Times, April 8, 2013 They came from many sources, and many were descended from columns by the celebrated

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...

columnist

Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lewis ...

.
Martin Gardner’s Impromptu
' By Gary Antonick, New York Times, November 30, 2015 He often wrote about Gardner and considered him to be the leading popularizer of

recreational mathematics Recreational mathematics is mathematics carried out for recreation (entertainment) rather than as a strictly research and application-based professional activity or as a part of a student's formal education. Although it is not necessarily limited ...

.
Martin Gardner’s The Monkey and the Coconuts
' "Martin Gardner, the American science and math writer who popularized the notion of recreational mathematics." in Numberplay The ''New York Times'':, October 7, 2013 Conferences called

Gathering 4 Gardner Gathering 4 Gardner (G4G) is an educational foundation and non-profit corporation (Gathering 4 Gardner, Inc.) devoted to preserving the legacy and spirit of prolific writer Martin Gardner. G4G organizes conferences where people who have been inspi ...

are held every two years to celebrate Gardner's legacy, and Antonick has twice spoken at these events.
The Neuroscience of Curiosity
' video by Gary Antonick, G4G Celebration published on Oct 22, 2014
Projectile on an Incline-No Calculation
' video by Gary Antonick, G4G Celebration, Published on Jul 19, 2018 He also supports the

Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival The Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival (JRMF) is an educational organization that sponsors locally organized mathematics festivals and online webinars targeting K–12 students. The events are designed to introduce students to mathematics in a c ...

. Among the many classic problems of recreational mathematics featured in "Numberplay" are The

Prisoner's Dilemma The Prisoner's Dilemma is an example of a game analyzed in game theory. It is also a thought experiment that challenges two completely rational agents to a dilemma: cooperate with their partner for mutual reward, or betray their partner ("defe ...

, The Two Child Problem, The

Monty Hall Problem The Monty Hall problem is a brain teaser, in the form of a probability puzzle, loosely based on the American television game show ''Let's Make a Deal'' and named after its original host, Monty Hall. The problem was originally posed (and solved) ...

, The Monkey and the Coconuts, The Two-cube Calendar, and The Zebra Puzzle. Sometimes "Numberplay" was used to celebrate other mathematicians such as Paul Erdős,
The Improbable Life of Paul Erdős
' in Numberplay The ''New York Times'', March 25, 2013 or simply to report a breakthrough in mathematics or game theory.
Google Artificial Intelligence Beats Expert at Go Game
' by Gary Antonick, February 1, 2016 "Numberplay" columns led to five sequences originated by AntonickOEIS sequence numbers A227050, A051732, A247653, A247654, and A240567 being listed in the

On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS) is an online database of integer sequences. It was created and maintained by Neil Sloane while researching at AT&T Labs. He transferred the intellectual property and hosting of the OEIS to the ...

(OEIS)Sequences originated by Gary Antonick

References

External links

list of articles by Gary Antonick in the New York Times
{{DEFAULTSORT:Antonick, Gary 1963 births Living people University of Michigan School of Education alumni Harvard Business School alumni Recreational mathematicians Writers from Detroit Mathematics popularizers