Happy New Year!

If you enjoyed my recent post about the Martin Gardner documentary, here's some more free Martin Gardner treats!

The first goodie was originally a giveaway at the Gathering For Garnder 3, back in 1998, and was inspired by the work of the late Jerry Andrus. Check out the video of these three dragons:



Believe it or not, these dragons are made entirely out of paper and glue (or tape) and have absolutely no moving parts! Thanks to the people at Thinkfun (originally known as Binary Arts) and Grand Illusions, you can get your own set of dragons free, and try out the illusion yourself! The Green Dragon, the Red Dragon and the Blue Dragon are all available as PDF files ready to download, print and construct. It's amazing how popular these 3 little dragons have become!

Illusions often bring to mind magic tricks, and Martin Gardner was no slouch in this area, either. Courtesy of Numericana.com, we have Martin Gardner's prediction effect, Paths To God, which employs the Kruskal Count. This is just 1 of 4 effects that were originally published by Martin Gardner in the May 1999 issue of GAMES Magazine.

Our final free goodie is a book titled The Mathemagician and Pied Puzzler: A Collection in Tribute to Martin Gardner. It was made available as a free PDF by the Gathering for Gardner Group back in 2000, even though they only first published it in 1999!

It's filled with not only interesting articles about Martin Gardner and his life, but about the topics he covered in his books and columns. It's one thing to read his original columns, and quite another to see the new directions in which they've been taken! If you love puzzles, science, math, magic, or any combination of the above, take some time to read and enjoy the many people who have been inspired by this amazing author.