‘Undiluted Hocus-Pocus,’ by Martin Gardner
You can construct a Möbius strip from a piece of paper. You cut a strip, say, an inch wide and two feet long, twist one end 180 degrees, and join that to the other end with rubber cement. You now hold a physical paradox: If you trace a pencil line continuously down the middle of your strip, you end up with one continuous line down the middle of both sides. This proves that the paper has only one side, even though, when you pinch it between your fingers, you can feel both sides at the same time. Your intellect collides with your senses, and the result, if you are Martin Gardner, is inspiration.
“Undiluted Hocus-Pocus: The Autobiography of Martin Gardner” is the “disheveled memoir” of the beloved Scientific American columnist, journalist and author or editor of more than 100 books of philosophy, humor, mathematics, poetry, puzzles, fiction, science, anthologies and annotations (e.g., “The Annotated Alice”), and essays on topics from logic to literary criticism.
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