Editing Martin Gardner (section)

==Biography==

===Youth and education===
Martin Gardner was born into a prosperous family in [[Tulsa, Oklahoma]], to James Henry Gardner, a [[petroleum geologist]],<ref>James Gardner later became the 8th President of the [[American Association of Petroleum Geologists]].</ref> and his wife, Willie Wilkerson Spiers, a [[Montessori education|Montessori-trained]] teacher.  His mother taught Martin to read before he started school, reading him ''[[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz|The Wizard of Oz]]'', and this began a lifelong interest in the [[Oz books]] of [[L.&nbsp;Frank Baum]].<ref name=fame/><ref name=England_2014/>  His fascination with mathematics started in his boyhood when his father gave him a copy of [[Sam Loyd]]'s ''Cyclopedia of 5000 Puzzles, Tricks and Conundrums''.<ref>Suzuki (1996) at 17:20</ref><ref>MacTutor</ref>

[[File:Martin Gardner HS Yearbook.jpeg|thumb|Gardner as a high school senior, 1932]]
He attended the [[University of Chicago]] where he studied history, literature and sciences under their intellectually-stimulating Great Books curriculum and earned his bachelor's degree in [[philosophy]] in 1936.<ref name=telegraph/> Early jobs included reporter on the ''[[Tulsa Tribune]]'', writer at the University of Chicago Office of Press Relations, and case worker in [[Black Belt (region of Chicago)|Chicago's Black Belt]] for the city's Relief Administration. During [[World War II]], he served for four years in the U.S. Navy as a [[Yeoman (US Navy)|yeoman]] on board the destroyer escort [[USS Pope (DE-134)|USS ''Pope'']] in the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic]]. His ship was still in the Atlantic when the war came to an end with the [[surrender of Japan]] in August 1945.

After the war, Gardner returned to the University of Chicago.<ref name=Shermer_1997>Shermer (1997)</ref> He attended graduate school for a year there, but he did not earn an advanced degree.<ref name=allyn_jackson/>

===Early career===
In the late 1940s, Gardner moved to [[New York City]] and became a writer and editor at ''[[Humpty Dumpty Magazine|Humpty Dumpty]]'' magazine, where for eight years, he wrote features and stories for it and several other children's magazines.<ref>Yam, Philip (December 1995) [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/profile-of-martin-gardner/ Profile: Martin Gardner, the Mathematical Gamester (1914–2010)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180511082616/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/profile-of-martin-gardner/ |date=2018-05-11 }} Scientific American</ref> His paper-folding puzzles at that magazine led to his first work at ''Scientific American.''<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gardner |first1=Martin |last2=Berlekamp |first2=Elwyn R. |last3=Rodgers |first3=Tom |year=1999 |title=The mathemagician and pied puzzler: a collection in tribute to Martin Gardner |publisher=A K Peters, Ltd. |isbn=978-1-56881-075-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9GvNAjykUqQC&pg=PA3}}</ref> For many decades, Gardner, his wife Charlotte, and their two sons, Jim and Tom, lived in [[Hastings-on-Hudson, New York]], where he earned his living as a freelance author, publishing books with several different publishers, and also publishing hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles.<ref name=martin_gardner_2013>Gardner, Martin (2013)</ref>

===Middle age===
In 1950, he wrote an article in the ''[[Antioch Review]]'' entitled "The Hermit Scientist".<ref>Gardner, Martin, "The Hermit Scientist", ''[[Antioch Review]]'', Winter 1950–1951, pp. 447–457.</ref>  It was one of Gardner's earliest articles about [[junk science]], and in 1952 a much-expanded version became his first published book: ''In the Name of Science: An Entertaining Survey of the High Priests and Cultists of Science, Past and Present''. The year 1960 saw the original edition of the best-selling book of his career, ''The Annotated Alice''.<ref name=Burstein_2011>Burstein (2011)</ref>

In 1957 Gardner started writing a column for ''Scientific American'' called "Mathematical Games".  It ran for over a quarter century and dealt with the subject of [[recreational mathematics]]. The "Mathematical Games" column became the most popular feature of the magazine and was the first thing that many readers turned to.<ref>Hofstadter (2010): There were thousands of such people spread all around the world{{snd}}mathematicians, physicists, philosophers, computer scientists, and on and on{{snd}}who thought of Martin Gardner's column not as merely a feature of that great magazine ''Scientific American'', but as its very heart and soul.</ref> In September 1977 ''Scientific American'' acknowledged the prestige and popularity of Gardner's column by moving it from the back to the very front of the magazine.<ref>Demaine (2008): p. 24</ref>

===Retirement and death===
In 1979, Gardner left ''Scientific American''. He and his wife Charlotte moved to [[Hendersonville, North Carolina]]. He continued to write math articles, sending them to ''[[The Mathematical Intelligencer]]'', ''[[Math Horizons]]'', ''[[The College Mathematics Journal]]'', and ''Scientific American''. He also revised some of his older books such as ''Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube''.<ref name=dana_richards>Richards (2014)</ref> Charlotte died in 2000 and in 2004 Gardner returned to Oklahoma,<ref>Albers (2008)</ref> where his son, James Gardner, was a professor of education at the [[University of Oklahoma]]<ref name=allyn_jackson/> in [[Norman, Oklahoma|Norman]]. He died there on May 22, 2010.<ref name=douglas_martin/> An autobiography{{snd}}''Undiluted Hocus-Pocus: The Autobiography of Martin Gardner''{{snd}}was published posthumously.<ref name=martin_gardner_2013/>