Martin Gardner Has Died

This is slightly off-topic but it is with sadness that I discovered that Martin Gardner, one of the best science writers in the history of the business has died at the age of 95. It was his book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, that largely got me interested in science and in thinking about some of the notions that people took for granted that simply weren't so. The Telegraph writes:

In more than 70 books, Gardner produced lay guides to Einstein's Theory of Relativity; ambidexterity and physical symmetry; the bath plug vortex (the phenomenon by which bathwater in the northern hemisphere drains in an anticlockwise direction and clockwise in the southern hemisphere); and even the concept of God. He also published fiction, poetry and literary and film criticism as well as puzzle books.

In The Numerology of Dr Matrix (1967) Gardner investigated links between numerals and the occult, asking (for example) what is special about the number 8,549,176,320? (A: It is the 10 natural integers arranged in the order of the English alphabet.)

He will be missed.

----------------
Now playing: Mike Rutherford - Cats And Rats (In This Neighbourhood)
via FoxyTunes