2020 CoM Events

Each October, people gather around the world, in small and large groups, for Celebration of Mind events. These celebrate the legacy of Martin Gardner (1914-2010), a prolific non-fiction writer who turned on several generations to the joys of mathematics and rational thinking. His interests were very broad, and included the works of Lewis Carroll, close-up magic, and philosophy.

This year is the 10th anniversary of Celebration of Mind! Gathering 4 Gardner is hosting a virtual Celebration of Mind and we are inviting everyone who loves Alice in Wonderland, brainteasers, puzzles, the math of fiber arts, paper fun, skepticism, and magic of all types to join us. This week-long event includes videos, live presentations and Q&A sessions for the curious of all ages.

CoM | Ken Knowlton

Gathering 4 Gardner’s Celebration of Mind is proud to present graphics and mosaic legend Ken Knowlton in a live interview with Mark Setteducati and Bob Bosch.

Ken Knowlton (born 1931) worked for many years at Bell Labs. He’s a computer graphics pioneer who is particularly known as a digital mosaicist. In 1963, Ken was the first man to fill a movie screen with pixels with his invention of the BEFLIX programming language. He was also one of the first persons to create a computer-generated picture. In 1966, he and fellow Bell Labs researcher Leon Harmon (1922-1983) were experimenting with photomosaics, creating large prints from collections of small symbols or images. By scanning a photograph with a camera and converting the analog voltages to binary numbers, which were assigned typographic symbols based on halftone densities, they came up with an image, which the New York Times published in October 1967. It was also part of the earliest computer art exhibition, The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age, which opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City a year later.

Ken invented and patented in 1983 a method of making portraits from complete sets of dominoes. He also co-invented Ji Ga Zo, a 2011 puzzle in which the user assembles a mosaic from 300 shaded pieces to form a digitized image from the user’s own photograph.

Celebrating Martin Gardner, Magic Games and Recreational Mathematics – Ricordando Martin Gardner, giochi di magia e di matematica ricreativa

A Feira da Matemática está de volta ao Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência!
Este ano, devido a todos os constrangimentos causados pela Pandemia COVID-19, com um programa exclusivamente online.

Serão dois dias repletos de atividades científicas e educativas dirigidas a todos os públicos, desde exposições online, jogos e desafios, palestras, Fado Mathemático, entre muitas outras.

Martin Gardner (1914-2010) était à la fois un mathématicien, un grand magicien, un illustre amateur de littérature et un esprit éclairé. L’association Kafemath, honore depuis plusieurs années sa mémoire chaque 21 octobre, jour de sa naissance. L’événement se tient simultanément dans de nombreux pays, en liaison avec l’association américaine “Gathering For Gardner”. Le temps d’une soirée pour rendre un hommage joyeux et jubilatoire à un personnage hors-normes !
Soirée “zoom” animée par Pierre Berloquin, avec les interventions de Nicholas Rose et Hervé Stève,
Jean-Jacques Dupas, Philippe Boulanger, Eric Birmingham, François Lavallou et Tiago Hirth.

The Virtual Celebration of Mind in Panama took place on Monday, October 26th, 2020 from 10 am until 11:30 am, with Dr. Ricardo Teixeira, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Houston – Victoria in the United States, as our invited speaker. This virtual event was free and open to the general public.

The invited speaker started the virtual event by sharing stories about Martin Gardner’s life, who is known as being the best friend of mathematics. Dr. Ricardo Teixeira presented several mathemagic tricks that appear in Martin Gardner’s books, including a magic trick using playing cards, a trick that involves parity and a trick with cyclic numbers. This virtual event was co-organized with the Gathering 4 Gardner (G4G) Foundation.

CoM | Performing Magic on the Virtual Stage

In this interactive talk that is part math lesson, part magic performance, and part secrets divulged, Nathaniel Segal will discuss the benefits and challenges associated with creating magic for the virtual platform. Through his original magic square routine, he will talk about making presentations interactive. He will also discuss some of the secrets of the technical side of virtual presentations and how to make your online presentations more engaging and entertaining. Bring a deck of cards to follow along with the magic and prepare to be amazed and informed – virtually! Nathaniel Segal is an award-winning full-time magician and magic creator. He has an applied mathematics degree and a theater minor from UC Berkeley and is a published magician. He was a past president of the Oakland Magic Circle and presenter at G4G13. He now performs and teaches magic all over the world virtually.

He won first place in one of the first-ever virtual magic competitions at AbraCORNdabra and was written up in KQED on adapting to online performances. He specializes in performing corporate magic for some of the top tech companies in Silicon Valley and beyond. Find out more at: SegalMagic.com.