Index Page

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Introduction

Martin Gardner was born in ... and died in ...

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Chronology

1941

Gardner's 'After the Dessert', which was published by Max Holden in New York in 1941, contains the Flapping Bird, How to Turn a Banknote Upside Down, and the Improvised Brassiere.

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1949

Hugard's Magic Monthly for February 1949 contained an article by Gardner titled 'Dollar Bill Folds' which explained the Mazuma Fish, Mazuma Midget and Mazuma Mushroom folds. (Mazuma is US slang for money.)

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Hugard's Magic Monthly for September 1949 contained an article by Gardner titled 'Stunts with Paper' which explained a version of the paper doily, torn to produce eight rabbits, by Jay Marshall, and a 'Cardboard Snapper' - ie the Sugar Tongs.

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Gardner's 'Over the Coffee Cups' was published by the Montandon Magic Co in 1949. According to the list of contents at conjuringarchive.com it contains several dollar bill folding stunts / effects, 'Tender and Private' (gag, folding a Dollar bill to form other words', 'Berland's Vanishing Bill' (bill folded to simulate two bills), 'Mushroom, Key, and States' (folding bill to make picture of a mushroom' and 'Valuable Paper Wad' (bill is folded to white little packet, curiosity).

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1951 / 2

Gardner made regular contributions of articles to Children's Digest magazine during late 1951 and 1952, some of which featured paperfolding designs.

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1956

An article titled 'Flexagons', written by Gardner, was published in issue 195 of Scientific American in Dec 1956. This article explained how to make and flex some basic straight strip hexaflexagons. It also stated that hexaflexagons had been invented in 1939 by Arthur Stone, then studying at Princeton, which were further developed by a 'Flexagon Committee' consisting of Stone himself, Bryant Tuckerman, Richard Feynman and John Tukey (all of whom were to go on to become famous in other ways) and that 'A complete mathematical theory of flexigation was worked out in 1940 by Tukey and Feynman.'

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1957

The letters column of Scientific American Vol. 196, No. 3 of March 1957, pp. 8-20, contained several letters relating to flexagons, one of which, from Gardner, gave a strip from which a heptahexaflexagon could be constructed.'

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1958

The May 1958 issue of 'Scientific American' included an article by Gardner titled 'About Tetraflexagons and Tetraflexigation' which explains how to make and flex the tri-tetraflexagon, a tetra-tetraflexagon and a hexa-tetraflexagon, describes and illustrates the Flexatube and gives the Central Line solution.

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Issue 2 of 'The Origamian', published in November 1958, lists Gardner as being among those whom Lillian Oppenheimer has made 'Honorary Members' of the Origami Center.

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1959

According to the listing of exhibits in the catalogue, Gardner contributed a design (presumably of his own invention) to the 'Plane Geometry and Fancy Figures' exhibition held at the Cooper Union Museum in New York in the Summer of 1959:

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The July 1959 issue of 'Scientific American' included an article by Gardner titled 'About origami, the Japanese art of folding objects out of paper', which included diagrams for the Pentagonal Knot and See-Through Pentagram, a parabola, a calculus problem and the Flapping Bird.

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1971

The May 1971 issue of 'Scientific American' included an article by Gardner titled 'The Combinatorial Richness of Folding a Piece of Paper' which contained instructions for making a paperfolding puzzle by William Dudeney and three others by Robert E Neale ie., Beelzebub, the Cross Flexagon and the Sheep and Goats puzzle. The solutions were published in the June 1971 issue.

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