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In 1947, Flanagan, a former editor of Life magazine, and two friends bought the magazine Scientific American, which at the time had a circulation of 40,000. As its new editor, he made a few changes. First, he dictated that the people doing research should be the primary authors of articles in the magazine, and second, the published articles should be readable by people other than scientists. He recruited scientists like James D. Watson, Hans Bethe, Linus Pauling, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein to write articles, and then edited them so they were readable by a lay audience, and ran book reviews. He hired Martin Gardner to create fun but interesting puzzles. "He had a tremendous influence on science journalism," says Leon Jaroff, former science editor at Time magazine. "Before, much of science journalism was largely incomprehensible to the layperson." By the time he retired in 1984, circulation was up to 600,000, exceeding many popular general interest magazines. He died at home an January 11 from prostate cancer. He was 85. From This is True for 16 January 2005 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: Lewis Carroll List Price: $3.95 Amazon Price: $3.95 Editorial Review: The Mad Hatter, the Ugly Duchess, the Mock Turtle, the Queen of Hearts, the Cheshire Cat-characters each more eccentric than the last, and that could only have come from Lewis Carroll, the master of sublime nonsense. In these two brilliant burlesques he created two of the most famous and fantastic novels of all time that not only stirred our imagination but revolutionized literature. • Featuring the exquisite line drawings created for the original edition  By: Martin Gardner List Price: $4.95 Amazon Price: $4.95 Editorial Review: Noted expert selects 70 "short" puzzles. The Returning Explorer, The Mutilated Chessboard, Scrambled Box Tops, and 67 more. Solutions included.  By: Lewis Carroll List Price: $29.95 Amazon Price: $19.77 Editorial Review: "What is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations!" Readers who share Alice's taste in books will be more than satisfied with The Annotated Alice, a volume that includes not only pictures and conversations, but a thorough gloss on the text as well. There may be some, like G.K. Chesterton, who abhor the notion of putting Lewis Carroll's masterpiece under a microscope and analyzing it within an inch of its whimsical life. But as Martin Gardner points out in his introduction, so much of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass is composed of private jokes and details of Victorian manners and mores that modern audiences are not likely to catch. Yes, Alice can be enjoyed on its own merits, but The Annotated Alice appeals to the nosy parker in all of us. Thus we learn, for example, that the source of the mouse's tale may have been Alfred Lord Tennyson who "once told Carroll that he had dreamed a lengthy poem about fairies, which began with very long lines, then the lines got shorter and shorter until the poem ended with fifty or sixty lines of two syllables each." And that, contrary to popular belief, the Mad Hatter character was not a parody of then Prime Minister Gladstone, but rather was based on an Oxford furniture dealer named Theophilus Carter. Gardner's annotations run the gamut from the factual and historical to the speculative and are, in their own way, quite as fascinating as the text they refer to. Occasionally, he even comments on himself, as when he quotes a fellow annotator of Alice, James Kincaid: "The historical context does not call for a gloss but the passage provides an opportunity to point out the ambivalence that may attend the central figure and her desire to grow up." And then follows with a charming riposte: "I thank Mr. Kincaid for supporting my own rambling." There's a lot of information in the margins (indeed, the page is pretty evenly divided between Carroll's text and Gardner's), but the ramblings turn out to be well worth the time. So hand over your old copy of Lewis Carroll's classic to the kids--this Alice in Wonderland is intended entirely for adults. --Alix WilberThe culmination of a lifetime of scholarship, The Annotated Alice is a landmark event in the rich history of Lewis Carroll and cause to celebrate the remarkable career of Martin Gardner. For over half a century, Martin Gardner has established himself as one of the world's leading authorities on Lewis Carroll. His Annotated Alice, first published in 1960, has over half a million copies in print around the world and is highly sought after by families and scholars alike--for it was Gardner who first decoded the wordplay and the many mathematical riddles that lie embedded in Carroll's two classic stories: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Forty years after this groundbreaking publication, Norton is proud to publish the Definitive Edition of The Annotated Alice, a work that combines the notes of Gardner's 1960 edition with his 1990 update, More Annotated Alice, as well as additional new discoveries and updates drawn from Gardner's encyclopedic knowledge of the texts. Illustrated with John Tenniel's classic and beloved art--along with many recently discovered Tenniel pencil sketches--The Annotated Alice will be Gardner's most beautiful and enduring tribute to Carroll's masterpieces yet. Celebrating his eighty-fifth birthday in the fall of 1999, the redoubtable Gardner has been called by Douglas Hofstadter "one of the great intellects produced in this country in this century." With The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition, we have this remarkable scholar's crowning achievement.  By: Silvanus P. ThompsonMartin Gardner List Price: $22.95 Amazon Price: $15.61 Editorial Review: Calculus Made Easy has long been the most popular calculus primer, and this major revision of the classic math text makes the subject at hand still more comprehensible to readers of all levels. With a new introduction, three new chapters, modernized language and methods throughout, and an appendix of challenging and enjoyable practice problems, Calculus Made Easy has been thoroughly updated for the modern reader.  By: Newt GingrichWilliam R. ForstchenAlbert S. Hanser List Price: $7.99 Amazon Price: $7.99 Editorial Review: The New York Times bestselling authors of Gettysburg continue their inventive series with this remarkable answer to the great “what-if” of the American Civil War: After his great victories at Gettysburg and Union Mills, General Robert E. Lee’s attempt to bring the war to an end by attacking Washington, D.C., fails. However, in securing Washington, the remnants of the valiant Union Army of the Potomac are trapped and destroyed. For Lincoln, there is only one hope left, that General Ulysses S. Grant can save the Union cause. It is August 22, 1863. Pursuing the Union troops up to the banks of the Susquehanna, Lee is caught off balance when news arrives that Grant, in command of over seventy thousand men, has crossed that same river. The two armies finally collide in Central Maryland and a bloody weeklong battle ensues along the banks of Monocacy Creek. This must be the “final” battle for both sides. |
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