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==Magic== {{quote box |quote= Card magic, and magic in general, owe a far greater debt to Martin Gardner than most conjurors realize.<ref>[http://martin-gardner.org/MagicInfluence.html Martin Gardner's Magic Influence] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160521183446/http://martin-gardner.org/MagicInfluence.html |date=2016-05-21 }} at martin-gardner.org</ref> |source= –Stephen Minch |align = right |width = 33% }} Martin Gardner held a lifelong fascination with magic and illusion that began when his father demonstrated a trick to him.<ref>Costello (1988) p. 115: His father had taught him his first trick, the "Knife and Paper" trick, a bit of legerdemain involving a butter knife with bits of paper on it.</ref> He wrote for a magic magazine in high school and worked in a department store demonstrating magic tricks while he was at the University of Chicago.<ref name=Bellos_2010>Bellos (2010)</ref> Gardner's first published writing (at the age of fifteen) was a magic trick in ''[[The Sphinx (magazine)|The Sphinx]]'', the official magazine of the [[Society of American Magicians]].<ref name=G4G>Gathering 4 Gardner (2014)</ref> He focused mainly on [[micromagic]] (table or close-up magic) and, from the 1930s on, published a significant number of original contributions to this secretive field. Magician [[Joe M. Turner]] said, ''The Encyclopedia of Impromptu Magic'', which Gardner wrote in 1985, "is guaranteed to show up in any poll of magicians' favorite magic books."<ref>Demaine (2008) p. 12</ref><ref>[http://miraclefactory.net/zenstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=78 Reviews of Martin Gardner's ''Impromptu''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170321082731/http://miraclefactory.net/zenstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=78 |date=2017-03-21 }} The Miracle Factory</ref> His first magic book for the general public, ''Mathematics, Magic and Mystery'' (Dover, 1956), is still considered a classic in the field.<ref name=G4G/> He was well known for his innovative tapping and spelling effects, with and without [[playing cards]], and was most proud of the effect he called the "Wink Change".<ref>Demaine (2008): pp. 4–5</ref> Many of Gardner's lifelong friends were magicians.<ref name=origami>Lister (1995)</ref> These included William Simon who introduced Gardner to Charlotte Greenwald, whom he married in 1952, [[Dai Vernon]], [[Jerry Andrus]], statistician [[Persi Diaconis]], and polymath [[Raymond Smullyan]]. Gardner considered fellow magician [[James Randi]] his closest friend. Diaconis and Smullyan like Gardner straddled the two worlds of mathematics and magic.<ref name=hofstadter/> Mathematics and magic were frequently intertwined in Gardner's work.<ref>[http://store.doverpublications.com/0486203352.html from Dover Publications: ''Mathematics, Magic and Mystery''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160506140604/http://store.doverpublications.com/0486203352.html |date=2016-05-06 }} "As a rule, we simply accept these tricks and 'magic' without recognizing that they are really demonstrations of strict laws based on probability, sets, number theory, topology, and other branches of mathematics."</ref> One of his earliest books, ''Mathematics, Magic and Mystery'' (1956), was about mathematically based magic tricks.<ref name=Bellos_2010/> Mathematical magic tricks were often featured in his "Mathematical Games" column–for example, his August 1962 column was titled "A variety of diverting tricks collected at a fictitious convention of magicians." From 1998 to 2002 he wrote a monthly column on magic tricks called "Trick of the Month" in [[The Physics Teacher]], a journal published by the [[American Association of Physics Teachers]].<ref>[http://www.doverpublications.com/mathsci/0516/d/ The Dover Math and Science Newsletter] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150503043436/http://www.doverpublications.com/mathsci/0516/d/ |date=2015-05-03 }} May 16, 2011</ref> In 1999 ''[[Magic (American magazine)|Magic magazine]]'' named Gardner one of the "100 Most Influential Magicians of the Twentieth Century".<ref name=magic>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/colm-mulcahy/top-10-martin-gardner-boo_b_6062276.html Top 10 Martin Gardner Books] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160325041816/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/colm-mulcahy/top-10-martin-gardner-boo_b_6062276.html |date=2016-03-25 }}, by Colm Mulcahy, Huffington Post Books, October 28, 2014</ref> In 2005 he received a 'Lifetime Achievement Fellowship' from the [[Academy of Magical Arts]].<ref name=HallofFame>{{cite web|title=Hall of Fame|url=http://www.magiccastle.com/hall_of_fame/|website=The Academy of Magical Arts|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161120002854/http://www.magiccastle.com/hall_of_fame/|archive-date=2016-11-20|access-date=2017-12-24}}</ref> The last work to be published during his lifetime was a magic trick in the May 2010 issue of ''[[Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics]]''.<ref name=G4G/>
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