Martin gardner died a few days ago. The man whose Mathematical Games Column in the Scientific American gave me great joy in undergrad engineering days in the IIT Campus in Madras 1979-84. His column came to an end to be followed by another great man, still living, Douglas Hofstadter, whose Metamagical Themas (an anagram of mathematical games), provided equal measures of joy, and more complicated logic. Then came the joy of discovering Martin Gardner's Annotated Snark and the Annotated Alice in Wonderland, both books which I now own and treasure.
Martin deserves a special tribute for making the process of learning a special delight filled with his own brand of magic. I experienced the same delight with Samuel Perelman's Physics For Entertainment at around the same time. How can one thank people like this who make the search for knowledge a journey of delight and fun? Goodbye Martin. RIP
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