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
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 Lew ...
. G4G organizes conferences where people who have been inspired by or have a strong personal connection to Martin Gardner can meet and celebrate his influence.
[Peterson, Ivars (2006). ]
A Gathering for Gardner
' Science News, March 23, 2006 These events explore ideas and developments in recreational mathematics, magic, illusion, puzzles, philosophy, and rationality, and foster creative work in all of these areas by enthusiasts of all ages. G4G also facilitates a related series of events called Celebration of Mind (CoM).
History
Martin Gardner's prolific output as a columnist and writer—he authored over 100 books between 1951 and 2010—put him in contact with a large number of people on a wide range of subjects from magic, mathematics, puzzles, physics, philosophy, logic and rationality, to
G. K. Chesterton,
Alice in Wonderland, and the
Wizard of Oz. As a result, he had a large following of amateurs and professionals eager to pay tribute to him, but many of them had only infrequent contact with each other. Moreover, Gardner was famously shy, and generally declined to appear at any events honoring him.
[ Crease, Robert P. (2010). ]
Gathering for Gardner: Homage to the iconic author of Scientific American's 'Mathematical Games' column
' The Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2010
In the early 1990s, Atlanta-based entrepreneur and puzzle collector
Thomas M. Rodgers (1943–2012), a friend of Martin Gardner's, conceived a plan to create a gathering of people who shared Gardner's interests, especially puzzles, magic, and mathematics.
[Bellos, Alex (2008). ]
The science of fun
' The Guardian, May 30, 2008 Rodgers invited the world's foremost puzzle composers and collectors, and enlisted magician
Mark Setteducati and mathematician
Elwyn Berlekamp
Elwyn Ralph Berlekamp (September 6, 1940 – April 9, 2019) was a professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley.Contributors, ''IEEE Transactions on Information Theory'' 42, #3 (May 1996), p. 1048. DO10. ...
to recruit leading magicians and recreational mathematicians, respectively.
[ Gardner agreed to attend. Thus was born the first Gathering (G4G1), held in Atlanta, GA, in January 1993.][Rothstein, Edward (2006). ]
Puzzles, Origami and Other Mind-Twisters
' The New York Times, April 3, 2006 For the next two decades G4G was supported mainly by Rodgers with "seemingly unfettered access to his personal time and resources".[''Barrycades and Septoku: Papers in Honor of Martin Gardner and Tom Rodgers'', edited by Thane Plambeck & Tomas Rokicki, American Mathematical Society, May 2020, p.xiv ]
In 2007 board members Rodgers, Berlekamp, Setteducati, Thane Plambeck, and Scott Hudson de Tarnowsky decided that G4G should broaden its reach and expand the scope of its educational programs. To that end they formed the 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation Gathering 4 Gardner, Inc. So far there have been 14 Gatherings, all held in downtown Atlanta. The 14th Gathering took place in April 2022 (delayed for 2 years because of the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
) and was a hybrid event, with some participants joining remotely as speakers and audience members.
The logo of Gathering for Gardner, as well as the logo for the first CoM event, employs ambigrams
An ambigram is a calligraphic design that has several interpretations as written.
The term was coined by Douglas Hofstadter in 1983. Most often, ambigrams appear as visually symmetrical words. When flipped, they remain unchanged, or they mutate ...
designed by long-time Gardner associate Scott Kim.
G4Gn events
Continuing Martin Gardner's pursuit of a playful and fun approach to learning, G4Gn events explore ideas in fields of interest to Gardner. The term G4G is also used to denote the community of people who participate in these events. With the "n" denoting the number in the series, G4Gn is an invitation-only bi-annual conference that started with G4G1 in January 1993. A second gathering (G4G2) was held in Atlanta in 1996, and from then on the events have been held bi-annually, in the springs of even-numbered years, up until G4G13 which took place in April 2018 and featured Fields medallist Manjul Bhargava
Manjul Bhargava (born 8 August 1974) is a Canadian-American mathematician. He is the Brandon Fradd, Class of 1983, Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, the Stieltjes Professor of Number Theory at Leiden University, and also holds A ...
and inventor of the eponymous cube Ernő Rubik.
After a delay because of Covid, G4G14 finally took place in April 2022. Lewis Carroll expert Mark Burstein was a featured speaker with a talk titled, “A Literary Englishman and the Scientific American: Lewis Carroll’s Appearances in ‘Mathematical Games”. Ingrid Daubechies
Baroness Ingrid Daubechies ( ; ; born 17 August 1954) is a Belgian physicist and mathematician. She is best known for her work with wavelets in image compression.
Daubechies is recognized for her study of the mathematical methods that enhance ...
was also a featured speaker with a talk titled, "Reunited: An Art Historical and Digital Adventure".G4G Program Talk: Mark Burstein
The 14th Biennial Gathering 4 Gardner Conference (2020)
To date, all G4Gn conferences have been held in Atlanta, GA.
[ Gardner (and his wife), who disliked travel in addition to wanting to avoid the limelight, attended only the first two G4Gs.
Notable presenters over the years have included
* ]Jerry Andrus
Jerry Andrus (January 28, 1918 – August 26, 2007) was an American magician and writer known internationally for his original close-up, sleight of hand tricks and optical illusions, such as the famous "Linking Pins".
Early life
Andrus was born ...
* Art Benjamin
* John H. Conway
* Donald Coxeter
* Erik Demaine
Erik D. Demaine (born February 28, 1981) is a professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former child prodigy.
Early life and education
Demaine was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to artist sculptor Marti ...
* Persi Diaconis
Persi Warren Diaconis (; born January 31, 1945) is an American mathematician of Greek descent and former professional magician. He is the Mary V. Sunseri Professor of Statistics and Mathematics at Stanford University.
He is particularly know ...
* Jim Gardner (Martin Gardner's son )
* Lennart Green
Sven Lennart Green (born 25 December 1941) is a Swedish world champion close-up/card magician, a title which he won in 1991 at the FISM convention in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is known for his seemingly chaotic routines which, in spite of first ...
* Richard K. Guy
* George W. Hart
George William Hart (born 1955) is an American sculptor and geometer. Before retiring, he was an associate professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University in New York City and then an interdepartmental research professor at Stony B ...
* Vi Hart
Victoria Hart (born 1988), commonly known as Vi Hart (), is an American mathematician and YouTuber. They describe themselves as a "recreational mathemusician" and are well-known for creating mathematical videos on YouTube. Hart founded the virt ...
* Jay Marshall
* Max Maven
Max Maven (born Philip T. Goldstein; December 21, 1950 – November 1, 2022) was an American magician and mentalist whose performances were considered erudite and intelligent. He is ranked as one of the most influential mentalists of all time, a ...
* Alexa Meade
* Jeannine Mosely
* Roger Penrose
* Dana Richards
* Doris Schattschneider
* Will Shortz
William F. Shortz (born August 26, 1952) is an American puzzle creator and editor and crossword puzzle editor for ''The New York Times''.
Early life and education
Will Shortz was born and raised on an Arabian horse farm in Crawfordsville, Indi ...
* Raymond Smullyan
Raymond Merrill Smullyan (; May 25, 1919 – February 6, 2017) was an American mathematician, magician, concert pianist, logician, Taoist, and philosopher.
Born in Far Rockaway, New York, his first career was stage magic. He earned a BSc from ...
Activities typically include lectures, performance art, puzzle and book displays, close-up and stage magic acts. Another tradition held at these off-site events was the directed community building of original mathematical sculptures under the leadership of George Hart, Chaim Goodman-Strauss
Chaim Goodman-Strauss (born June 22, 1967 in Austin TX) is an American mathematician who works in convex geometry, especially aperiodic tiling. He is on the faculty of the University of Arkansas and is a co-author with John H. Conway of ''The Sym ...
and others.[Magic numbers: A meeting of mathemagical tricksters]
By Alex Bellos, New Scientist, 24 May 2010 Each conference has a Gift Exchange, in which attendees swap puzzles, magic tricks, artwork, mathematical papers, novelty items, books, and CDs/DVDs.[
Gardner and many of his admirers were filmed at G4G2 in 1996, and this footage formed the basis for a 46-minute episode of ]The Nature of Things
''The Nature of Things'' (also, ''The Nature of Things with David Suzuki'') is a Canadian television series of documentary programs. It debuted on CBC Television on 6 November 1960. Many of the programs document nature and the effect that hu ...
made by David Suzuki. Titled, ''Mystery and Magic of Mathematics: Martin Gardner and Friends'', it showcases Martin's numerous passions, and reminds us of the amazing panoply of people that he informally assembled and mentored over the decades.[Mathematics Awareness Month 2014: Mathematics, Magic, and Mystery]
mathaware.org
Celebration of Mind events
Developed in 2010 after Martin Gardner's death that spring, Celebration of Mind (CoM) is a worldwide series of events held on or around Gardner's birthday: October 21.[Mulcahy, Colm (2012)]
Tom Rodgers, Organizer of Gathering for Gardner and Celebration of Mind, Dies at 67
Mathematical Association of America, April 20, 2012 Anyone, anywhere, can host one, and most of them are open to the public.[+Plus Magazine (2010). ]
Gathering for Gardner – join the Celebration of Mind party!
' October 04, 2010 These CoMs vary in size from three people meeting to perform rubber-band magic for each other, to crowds of hundreds of students in highly organized exploratory paper folding activities. The goal is to celebrate the boundless creativity and curiosity of the human mind, and they have been held in locations from Boston to Beijing, and from Riga to Rio. There have been Celebration of Mind events hosted on all seven continents, and G4G encourages organizers to register their events at the CoM website.[Mulcahy, Colm (2012)]
Who wants to host a Celebration of Mind? There’s still time
The Aperiodical, October 19, 2012 Resources to assist with hosting events are provided through the organization's website, or participants can also just perform a magic trick, or share a puzzle or recreational mathematics problem with friends.[Kavassalis, S.C. (2010). ]
Gathering For Gardner: Celebration of Mind
' blogs.plos.org, October 21, 2010
References
External links
About Gathering 4 Gardner
video
G4G Celebration Videos
Gathering 4 Gardner Official Website
The G4G Channel on YouTube
{{Authority control
Culture of Atlanta
Mathematics conferences
Magic organizations
Charities based in Georgia (U.S. state)
501(c)(3) organizations
Organizations established in 1993