Talk:List of Martin Gardner Mathematical Games columns

Hi.. would have been nice if the authors had dropped me a note that this page was being created. We have a number of fixes to the titles queue up, but not yet posted to lclark.edu. We will be moving the index to Martin-Gardner.org in the next month or so.

FYI - John Miller, original creator of this index, and correspondent with Martin Gardner.

original creator of this index
Hello John Miller -- I am sorry that I did not contact you before creating this page. I looked at your home page and could not see any way to contact you. You will notice that I did cite your excellent and invaluable index. I will keep a watch on Martin-Gardner.org for the 'fixes to the titles' and will incorporate them into this page. Or, alternatively, you may wish to do that yourself.

The list of Mathematical Games article titles is an absolutely essential part of the Gardner story–and I was shocked that it had not already been added to Wikipedia. That is why I created the article. Let me know if there is anything else I may do to help document this amazing man.--Foobarnix (talk) 02:27, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Miller here. I'm OK with removing the link to my original compilation, which has now been moved to martin-gardner.org/MGSAindex.html ... We are also using the Sci AM online titles and have made many corrections. FYI only - our index has categories and some keywords, and will soon cross reference the columns with the 15 MG compilation books. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnedwardmiller (talk • contribs) 20:09, 29 October 2014 (UTC)


 * That sounds great. Of course, there is a lot of overlap and repetition between the various books and the columns.  Not to mention all the supplementary material that Gardner added to the columns when they were collected into books.  Sometimes whole extra chapters were added.  It would be truly wonderful to have all of it properly indexed.  Somebody should make an index of where each topic is mentioned–for example, a list of all columns that talk about pentaminoes.  Have fun sorting it all out!  All of these remarks apply also to the Hofstadter columns–especially the wealth of supplementary material added to his published book(s).--Foobarnix (talk) 23:04, 29 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I did a little research and just such an index by Carl W. Lee of the University of Kentucky can be found here. It is hard to say how much of this sort of information should be included in Wikipedia.--Foobarnix (talk) 16:20, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

April Fool's note on April '75
This page is a list of the columns as accurate as I could make it. I am using the actual titles as used in Scientific American issues where they appeared. I do not think we should clutter it up with a lot of explanations. If we do want to add remarks, such as the one about hoax column, these remarks should appear in a separate paragraph. BTW, I was not done proofing it and would have caught the misspellings you pointed out.

If an article about the games column–as opposed to a simple list of the columns–is needed, that would be the place to put additional remarks. There is much that could be said about many of the individual columns.

Meanwhile, I have removed the extra line.--Foobarnix (talk) 02:34, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Further remarks about this list
Notice that the Jon Miller Index to Mathematical Games citation has been replaced by citing Scientific American Magazine online records which are now the sole source of the titles contained in the table. This reference also provides a more complete and accurate list of the actual column titles. To the unidentified editor making changes to the April Fools column entry:
 * It would be helpful if you had a Wikipedia identity so that I could respond on your talk page.

The tone of your remarks may violate WP policy. Your first edit contained the statement:
 * You messed up a correct reference to Sam Loyd, and to Piet Hein -- provided wiki-links to clarify; April Fool's note on April '75 was useful explanatory note -- don't get rid of it!! (Have placed it on new line)

Your second edit said:
 * I SAID DON'T GET RID OF THIS USEFUL NOTE!!

Please see Civility. It is not nice to order people around.

I repeat - this article is a list - a list of the names of the Mathematical Games columns by Gardner. As such it is self-contained and useful as it stands. See Manual of Style/Lists of works. For an example of a nice clean list in WP see Henry James bibliography. Notice that the article writer does not attempt to explain what these works are about in the table. That is best done elsewhere. If we want to explain some or all of the entries, that belongs in a different kind of article. For example, I would certainly agree that it would be useful to have a complete cross reference to all of the hundreds of topics that are covered in the Gardner columns. For example, in what column did he discuss the North Pole puzzle? In what columns did he talk about Conway's Life game? Which columns contain chess problems?–and so on and on. To have such a list of annotations for all the columns would indeed be useful. But it would take a lot of work. And would it fit in any reasonably sized table? And would it violate Wikipedia's policy on No original research?

Indeed, Carl W. Lee of the University of Kentucky has created such a list here

Why single out the single April's Fool column for a special annotation? How many other columns need a special description? And where does one stop?--Foobarnix (talk) 22:04, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

To link or not to link
This article previously had several links - to Piet Hein and a couple other people. When looking it over to see if other links should be added I noticed that there were a lot of other people including Maurits C. Escher, Sam Loyd, Henry Ernest Dudeney, Francis Bacon, Lewis Carroll, Piet Hein, John Napier, John Horton Conway, Miguel Berrocal, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Plato among others-not to mention the fictional characters Dr. Matrix, Count Dracula, and Alice. And then there are numerous other possible links such as Császár polyhedron, King James Bible, solitaire, paradox, Ternary numeral system, and so on. In fact, the entire list could consist of almost nothing but linked words. I think that adding all possible links is a bad idea. Where do we stop! I removed all the links. People who want to look up, say, John Napier can easily manage that themselves.--Foobarnix (talk) 23:04, 26 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I have changed my mind. Several people said it would be extremely helpful to add links to the primary subject of each column.--Foobarnix (talk) 15:05, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

A Gardner's Workout
I removed the short paragraph about this book because it has nothing do with Scientific American or the Mathematical games column. The book is already listed in Martin Gardner bibliography. Gardner wrote other books after leaving SA but this article is not the place to cover them.--Foobarnix (talk) 14:22, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Why the Scepticism?
Just wondering how this list is in any way related to Skepticism. Baffled why it's categorised as a Skepticism article - a high importance one at that. BritishWikipedian (talk) 03:16, 19 May 2024 (UTC)