The Magic Numbers of Dr. Matrix

Gardner, Martin

ISBN 10: 0879752815 / ISBN 13: 9780879752811

Published by Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 1985

About this Item

326p., first American edition, hardbound in 9x5.5 inch faux leatherette boards lettered silverfoil and enclosed in the dust jacket. Nearly as new; top and bottom margins of the dust jacket are very slightly worn, and top edge of textblock bears a few sprinkles of dust-soil, an otherwise crisp, a very good copy. Laid in we have left in place a print-out from the publisher and a holograph-written blank with a reader's attempts to duplicate a Gardner calculation.

Seller Inventory # 318149

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Magic Numbers of Dr. Matrix
• Publisher: Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY
• Publication Date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0879752815
• ISBN 13: 9780879752811
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Seller catalogs:
  • Mysticism
  • Japan
  • US Presidents
  • Freethought
  • Language studies, Linguistics

About this title

Synopsis

In "The Magic Numbers of Dr. Matrix", Martin Gardner introduces us to this extraordinary man, Dr. Irving Joshua Matrix. Believed by many to be the greatest numerologist who ever lived, Dr. Matrix claims to be a reincarnation of Pythagoras. He was, however, completely unknown to the scientific community until Gardner wrote about him in "Scientific American" in 1960.That first report and the subsequent ones that appeared with each new encounter are collected here in their entirety. We follow Dr. Matrix as he roams the world and assumes new identities and discovers new manifestations of the power of numbers to explain and predict and entertain. Always at his side is his beautiful Eurasian daughter, Iva, who abets and protects her father in each new adventure. As you delve into "The Magic Numbers of Dr Matrix", you will master some significant combinatorial mathematics and number theory. The many remarkable puzzles of Dr. Matrix are all clearly answered in the back of the book, together with commentary and references by Gardner to enlighten the uninitiated and entertain the inquiring reader.

About the Author

Martin Gardner (1914 - 2010), the creator of Scientific American’s "Mathematical Games" column, which he wrote for more than twenty-five years, was the author of almost one hundred books, including The Annotated Night Before Christmas, The Annotated Snark, Martin Gardner’s Favorite Poetic Parodies, From the Wandering Jew to William F. Buckley Jr., and Science: Good, Bad and Bogus. For many years he was also a contributing editor to the Skeptical Inquirer.