What a great find!

We’ve had a lot of fun with the new Martin Gardner books around here, but I always find that there is more to discover about him.

David Suzuki’s The Nature of Things featured an entire piece on Gardner, from his math buddies to the sleight-of-hand circles he frequented.

Thanks to Scott, over at Grey Matter for linking it from Encyclopedia Brittanica Online. I’ve embedded it below.

Anyone who has experienced the joys of embedding video may forgive me if playback is buggy.

It’s a Windows Media file, so anyone having trouble viewing can click here for the mp4 file.

+plus Magazine warns, in its recent review of Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube, that his logic puzzles are not to be attempted on a hangover.

What makes a better bank?

• A group of experts, picked to deal within their specific area of expertise
• A group of smart people, working on deals with which they are unfamiliar, bombarded with data, and forced to rely on others to succeed

According to Cambridge author A. Alexandra Michel, the second model consistently performs better, and the hard proof can be seen in the recent financial crisis. She’s followed two groups of new bankers in her new book, Bullish on Uncertainty, and has seen these forces at work. Here’s a cool clip of some of her ideas.

Future Imperfect author David Friedman spoke at the CATO Institute earlier this month. The edited podcast and Book Forum video are now live.

Listen to the Podcast >>

The full video of the presentation can be found here.

With the Martin Gardner books available, I’ve been throwing the word hexaflexagon around a lot. It’s part of the title, after all.

For anyone who hasn’t ever seen one, they’re cool. I came across this video of someone flexing a hexaflexagon made from a map; one of the more interesting applications I’ve seen.

September 8, 2008

Wow, lots of good video lately. Earlier, we had one of our authors on CNN, questing for the real Ithaca.

Now, After Bush author Tim Lynch has appeared on C-SPAN’s Afterwords.

He was interviewed by American Enterprise Institute scholar Gary Schmidt.

Click the picture above to watch the full interview at C-SPAN’s site.