Martin Gardner Quotes

On this page you can find the TOP of Martin Gardner's best quotes! We hope you will find some sayings from Science writer Martin Gardner's in our collection, which will inspire you to new achievements! There are currently 40 quotes on this page collected since October 21, 1914! Share our collection of quotes with your friends on social media so that they can find something to inspire them!
  • Debunking bad science should be constant obligation of the science community, even if it takes time away from serious research or seems to be a losing battle. One takes comfort from the fact there is no Gresham's laws in science. In the long run, good science drives out bad.

    "The Night Is Large: Collected Essays, 1938-1995". Book by Martin Gardner (Introduction to Part III "Pseudoscience", p. 171), 1996.
  • One day, when I was doing well in class and had finished my lessons, I was sitting there trying to analyze the game of tic-tac-toe... The teacher came along and snatched my papers on which I had been doodling... She did not realize that analyzing tic-tac-toe can lead into dozens of non-trivial mathematical questions.

    Teacher  
  • The last level of metaphor in the Alice books is this: that life, viewed rationally and without illusion, appears to be a nonsense tale told by an idiot mathematician.

    Introduction to "The Annotated Alice. The Definitive Edition" by Lewis Carroll, 1999.
  • It is part of the pholosophic dullness of our time that there are millions of rational monsters walking about on their hind legs, observing the world through pairs of flexible little lenses, periodically supplying themselves with energy by pushing organic substances through holes in their faces, who see nothing fabulous whatever about themselves.

  • The sudden hunch, the creative leap of mind that "sees" in a flash how to solve a problem in a simple way, is something quite different from general intelligence.

    Martin Gardner (2006). “Aha! A Two Volume Collection: Aha! Gotcha Aha! Insight”, p.176, MAA
  • Politicians, real-estate agents, used-car salesmen, and advertising copy-writers are expected to stretch facts in self-serving directions, but scientists who falsify their results are regarded by their peers as committing an inexcusable crime. Yet the sad fact is that the history of science swarms with cases of outright fakery and instances of scientists who unconsciously distorted their work by seeing it through lenses of passionately held beliefs.

  • If God creates a world of particles and waves, dancing in obedience to mathematical and physical laws, who are we to say that he cannot make use of those laws to cover the surface of a small planet with living creatures?

    Martin Gardner (2005). “The New Ambidextrous Universe: Symmetry and Asymmetry from Mirror Reflections to Superstrings”, p.136, Courier Corporation
  • As far as I know, Clifford Pickover is the first mathematician to write a book about areas where math and theology overlap. Are there mathematical proofs of God? Who are the great mathematicians who believed in a deity? Does numerology lead anywhere when applied to sacred literature? Pickover covers these and many other off-trail topics with his usual verve, humor, and clarity. And along the way the reader will learn a great deal of serious mathematics.

    Math  
  • [T]he more the public is confused, the easier it falls prey to doctrines of pseudo-science which may at some future date recieve the backing of politically powerful groups [...]a renaissance of German quasi-science paralleled the rise of Hitler.

    Martin Gardner (2012). “Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science”, p.7, Courier Corporation
  • Mathematics is not only real, but it is the only reality.

    Math  
  • Modern science should indeed arouse in all of us a humility before the immensity of the unexplored and a tolerance for crazy hypotheses.

  • Although Lewis Carroll thought of The Hunting of the Snark as a nonsense ballad for children, it is hard to imagine - in fact one shudders to imagine - a child of today reading and enjoying it.

    "The Annotated Snark". Book by Martin Gardner, 1962.
  • Biographical history, as taught in our public schools, is still largely a history of boneheads; ridiculous kings and queens, paranoid political leaders, compulsive voyagers, ignorant general the flotsam and jetsam of historical currents. The men who radically altered history, the great scientists and mathematicians, are seldom mentioned, if at all.

    "Adventures Of a Mathematician" by Martin Gardner, www.nytimes.com. May 9, 1976.
  • The computers are not replacing mathematicians; they are breeding them.

    Martin Gardner (1961). “The 2nd Scientific American book of mathematical puzzles & diversions, a new selection”
  • As Bertrand Russell once wrote, two plus two is four even in the interior of the sun.

    Martin Gardner (2009). “When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish: And Other Speculations About This and That”, p.124, Macmillan
  • The violence and double-talk in the Alice books probably does no harm to children, but the novels should not be allowed to circulate indiscriminately among adults who are undergoing analysis.

  • When reputable scientists correct flaws in an experiment that produced fantastic results, then fail to get those results when they repeat the test with flaws corrected, they withdraw their original claims. They do not defend them by arguing irrelevantly that the failed replication was successful in some other way, or by making intemperate attacks on whomever dares to criticize their competence.

  • In many cases a dull proof can be supplemented by a geometric analogue so simple and beautiful that the truth of a theorem is almost seen at a glance.

    "Mathematical Games". Scientific American (October 1973), later quoted in Roger B. Nelson "Proofs Without Words: Exercises in Visual Thinking" ("Introduction", p. 5), 1993.
  • Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-and-Chips sign' have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?

    Martin Gardner (2006). “Aha! A Two Volume Collection: Aha! Gotcha Aha! Insight”, MAA
  • Mathematics is not only real, but it is the only reality. That is that entire universe is made of matter, obviously. And matter is made of particles. It's made of electrons and neutrons and protons. So the entire universe is made out of particles. Now what are the particles made out of They're not made out of anything. The only thing you can say about the reality of an electron is to cite its mathematical properties. So there's a sense in which matter has completely dissolved and what is left is just a mathematical structure.

    Math  
  • There are, and always have been, destructive pseudo-scientific notions linked to race and religion; these are the most widespread and damaging. Hopefully, educated people can succeed in shedding light into these areas of prejudice and ignorance, for as Voltaire once said: "Men will commit atrocities as long as they believe absurdities."

    "Exclusive Interview with Martin Gardner". Interview with Bernard Sussman, "Southwind" (Miami-Dade Junior College), Volume 3, No. 1, Fall 1968.
  • Indeed, there is something to be said for the old math when taught by a poorly trained teacher. He can, at least, get across the fundamental rules of calculation without too much confusion. The same teacher trying to teach new math is apt to get across nothing at all.

  • As I have often said, electrons and gerbils don't cheat. People do.

    Martin Gardner (1999). “The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener”, p.64, Macmillan
  • The high number from the Middle East is only coincidence, he said. It is no particular choice on our part, ... We accept visa trainees from those countries. We'd accept them from other countries, too, but we don't get their applications.

    Numbers  
  • One would be hard put to find a set of whole numbers with a more fascinating history and more elegant properties surrounded by greater depths of mystery--and more totally useless--than the perfect numbers.

  • A surprising proportion of mathematicians are accomplished musicians. Is it because music and mathematics share patterns that are beautiful?

    "Engaging. Interactive. Informative". The Dover Math and Science Newsletter, www.doverpublications.com. May 16, 2011.
  • Let the Bible be the Bible. It's not about science. It's not accurate history. It is a grab bag of religious fantasies written by many authors. Some of its myths, like the Star of Bethlehem, are very beautiful. Others are dull and ugly. Some express lofty ideals, such as the parables of Jesus. Others are morally disgusting.

    Martin Gardner (2001). “Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?: Debunking Pseudoscience”, p.45, W. W. Norton & Company
  • Mathemagical mathematics combines the beauty of mathematical structure with the entertainment value of a trick.

    "Mathematics, Magic and Mystery". Book by Martin Gardner (p. 9), 1956.
  • If present trends continue, our country may soon find itself far behind many other nations in both science and technology nations where, if you inform strangers that you are a mathematician, they respond with admiration and not by telling you how much they hated math in school, and how they sure could use you to balance their checkbooks.

  • A god whose creation is so imperfect that he must be continually adjusting it to make it work properly seems to me a god of relatively low order, hardly worthy of any worship.

    Martin Gardner (2005). “The New Ambidextrous Universe: Symmetry and Asymmetry from Mirror Reflections to Superstrings”, p.136, Courier Corporation
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  • We hope you have found the saying you were looking for in our collection! At the moment, we have collected 40 quotes from the Science writer Martin Gardner, starting from October 21, 1914! We periodically replenish our collection so that visitors of our website can always find inspirational quotes by authors from all over the world! Come back to us again!