Editor’s Note: Douglas Hofstadter gave permission to Scientific American to post this essay in light of the death of Martin Gardner, who wrote the magazine’s “Mathematical Games” column for 25 years and published more than 70 books. Gardner died May 22, at 95. I’ve been trying to reconstruct how I first encountered Martin Gardner . It may have happened in 1959, when at age 14 I happened to visit …
View post:Martin Gardner: A Major Shaping Force in My Life

