James Gardner, son of the late Martin Gardner, has sent me a truly wonderful gift, one that I shall always treasure. Forgive me if I’m a bit weepy at the moment, but this memento of my friend of many decades has affected me more than I thought it would. Martin, for those few of you who might not know, was a columnist for Scientific American for many years, a mathematician, a genius, and author of some 70 books and countless articles, some of them on a subject he loved: conjuring.
I spent a lot of time over the long years I knew Martin visiting him and his wife Charlotte at their home in Hastings-on-Hudson, and every time I pulled into that driveway I had to wonder whether he’d chosen the house because of its address: 10 Euclid Avenue. I never asked…
Martin had hundred of drawers of files at his home, and on one visit there I asked for some help preparing a talk I was to give to a huge audience of IBM executives and engineers in San Francisco. The company was concerned with promoting their series-370 business machines, and I asked Martin about that specific number, to see if I might work it into my presentation. "Aha!" he said – thus also inventing a book-title – "370 is one of only four possible numbers– aside from 1 itself – that are the sum of the cubes of their own digits. What's the next highest one?" I had no answer, and felt like a fool when he told me. It’s quite obvious. "And if you're interested in a Spanish connection," he continued, "turn it upside-down." I did, and IBM was very happy with the results. I'm sure Martin could have gone on and on with fascinating facts about any other number I'd have cared to choose....
Ah, but the gift I’ve received… It’s a 19” x 23” x 11” wooden lectern, worn and scratched, well-used and proud of that fact. On that sturdy desk Martin Gardner wrote most of his books, columns, articles, and letters, either by hand or on an ancient mechanical typewriter, about which I could tell another story, at another time… Every visitor to my home has been shown that lectern, which still contains two decks of cards that Martin used when inventing his card tricks, and they will never be opened by me.
A photo of Martin faces me as I peck out these comments at my desk, a photo to which I bid “Good morning, Martin!” as I ease into my office chair each morning, and as I turn in at night, I touch the lectern on the way to my slumber.
Try 371… See?