Over a period of 24 years (January 1957 – December 1980), Martin Gardner wrote 288 consecutive monthly "Mathematical Games" columns for Scientific American magazine. During the next 7½ years, through June 1986, Gardner wrote 9 more columns, bringing his total to 297, as other authors wrote most of the "Mathematical Games" columns. The table below lists Gardner's columns.[1]
Twelve of Gardner's columns provided the cover art for that month's magazine, indicated by "[cover]" in the table with a hyperlink to the cover.[1]
| date | Title |
|---|
| 1957 Jan | A new kind of magic square with remarkable properties[2] |
| 1957 Feb | An assortment of maddening puzzles[3] |
| 1957 Mar | Some old and new Versions of ticktacktoe |
| 1957 Apr | Paradoxes dealing with birthdays, playing cards, coins, crows and red-haired typists |
| 1957 May | About the remarkable similarity between the Icosian Game and the Tower of Hanoi |
| 1957 Jun | Curious figures descended from the Möbius band, which has only one side and one edge |
| 1957 Jul | Concerning the game of Hex, which may be played on the tiles of the bathroom floor |
| 1957 Aug | The life and work of Sam Loyd, a mighty inventor of puzzles |
| 1957 Sep | Concerning various card tricks with a mathematical message |
| 1957 Oct | How to remember numbers by mnemonic devices such as cuff links and red zebras |
| 1957 Nov | Nine titillating puzzles |
| 1957 Dec | More about complex dominoes |
| 1958 Jan | A collection of tantalizing fallacies of mathematics |
| 1958 Feb | Concerning the game of Nim and its mathematical analysis |
| 1958 Mar | About left- and right-handedness, mirror images and kindred matters |
| 1958 Apr | Concerning the celebrated puzzle of five sailors, a monkey and a pile of coconuts |
| 1958 May | About tetraflexagons and tetraflexagation |
| 1958 Jun | About Henry Ernest Dudeney, a brilliant creator of puzzles |
| 1958 Jul | Some diverting tricks which involve the concept of numerical congruence |
| 1958 Aug | A third collection of "brain-teasers" |
| 1958 Sep | A game in which standard pieces composed of cubes are assembled into larger forms |
| 1958 Oct | Four mathematical diversions involving concepts of topology |
| 1958 Nov | How rectangles, including squares, can be divided into squares of unequal size [cover] |
| 1958 Dec | Diversions which involve the five Platonic solids |
| 1959 Jan | About mazes and how they can be traversed |
| 1959 Feb | "Brain-teasers" that involve formal logic |
| 1959 Mar | Concerning the properties of various magic squares |
| 1959 Apr | The mathematical diversions of a fictitious carnival man |
| 1959 May | Another collection of "brain-teasers" |
| 1959 Jun | An inductive card game |
| 1959 Jul | About Origami, the Japanese art of folding objects out of paper |
| 1959 Aug | About phi, an irrational number that has some remarkable geometrical expressions |
| 1959 Sep | Concerning mechanical puzzles, and how an enthusiast has collected 2,000 of them |
| 1959 Oct | Problems involving questions of probability and ambiguity |
| 1959 Nov | How three modern mathematicians disproved a celebrated conjecture of Leonhard Euler [cover] |
| 1959 Dec | Diversions that clarify group theory, particularly by the weaving of braids |
| 1960 Jan | A fanciful dialogue about the wonders of numerology |
| 1960 Feb | A fifth collection of "brain-teasers" |
| 1960 Mar | The games and puzzles of Lewis Carroll |
| 1960 Apr | About mathematical games that are played on boards |
| 1960 May | Reflections on the packing of spheres |
| 1960 Jun | Recreations involving folding and cutting sheets of paper |
| 1960 Jul | Incidental information about the extraordinary number pi |
| 1960 Aug | An imaginary dialogue on "mathemagic": tricks based on mathematical principles |
| 1960 Sep | The celebrated four-color map problem of topology |
| 1960 Oct | A new collection of "brain-teasers" |
| 1960 Nov | More about the shapes that can be made with complex dominoes |
| 1960 Dec | Some recreations involving the binary number system |
| 1961 Jan | In which the author chats again with Dr. Matrix, numerologist extraordinary |
| 1961 Feb | Diversions that involve one of the classic conic sections: the ellipse |
| 1961 Mar | How to play dominoes in two and three dimensions |
| 1961 Apr | Concerning the diversions in a new book on geometry [cover] |
| 1961 May | In which the editor of this department meets the legendary Bertrand Apollinax |
| 1961 Jun | A new collection of "brain teasers" |
| 1961 Jul | Some diverting mathematical board games |
| 1961 Aug | Some entertainments that involve the calculus of finite differences |
| 1961 Sep | Surfaces with edges linked in the same way as the three rings of a well-known design |
| 1961 Oct | Diversions that involve the mathematical constant "e" |
| 1961 Nov | Wherein geometrical figures are dissected to make other figures |
| 1961 Dec | On the theory of probability and the practice of gambling |
| 1962 Jan | An adventure in hyperspace at the Church of the Fourth Dimension |
| 1962 Feb | A clutch of diverting problems |
| 1962 Mar | How to build a game-learning machine and teach it to play and win |
| 1962 Apr | About three types of spirals and how to construct them |
| 1962 May | Symmetry and asymmetry and the strange world of upside-down art |
| 1962 Jun | The game of solitaire and some variations and transformations |
| 1962 Jul | Fiction about life in two dimensions |
| 1962 Aug | A variety of diverting tricks collected at a fictitious convention of magicians |
| 1962 Sep | Tests that show whether a large number can be divided by a number from 2 to 12 |
| 1962 Oct | A collection of puzzles involving numbers, logic, and probability |
| 1962 Nov | Some puzzles based on checkerboards |
| 1962 Dec | Some simple tricks and manipulations from the ancient lore of string play |
| 1963 Jan | The author pays his annual visit to Dr. Matrix, the numerologist |
| 1963 Feb | Curves of constant width, one of which makes it possible to drill square holes |
| 1963 Mar | A new paradox, and variations on it, about a man condemned to be hanged |
| 1963 Apr | A bit of foolishness for April Fools' Day |
| 1963 May | On rep-tiles, polygons that can make larger and smaller copies of themselves |
| 1963 Jun | A discussion of helical structures, from corkscrews to DNA molecules |
| 1963 Jul | Topological diversions, including a bottle with no inside or outside |
| 1963 Aug | Permutations and paradoxes in combinatorial mathematics |
| 1963 Sep | How to solve puzzles by graphing the rebounds of a bouncing ball |
| 1963 Oct | About two new and two old mathematical board games |
| 1963 Nov | A mixed bag of problems |
| 1963 Dec | How to use the odd-even check for tricks and problem-solving |
| 1964 Jan | Presenting the one and only Dr. Matrix, numerologist, in his annual performance |
| 1964 Feb | The hypnotic fascination of sliding-block puzzles |
| 1964 Mar | The remarkable lore of the prime numbers [cover] |
| 1964 Apr | Various problems based on planar graphs, or sets of "vertices" connected by "edges" |
| 1964 May | The tyranny of 10 overthrown with the ternary number system |
| 1964 Jun | A collection of short problems and more talk of prime numbers |
| 1964 Jul | Curious properties of a cycloid curve |
| 1964 Aug | Concerning several magic tricks based on mathematical principles |
| 1964 Sep | Puns, palindromes and other word games that partake of the mathematical spirit |
| 1964 Oct | Simple proofs of the Pythagorean theorem, and sundry other matters |
| 1964 Nov | Some paradoxes and puzzles involving infinite series and the concept of limit |
| 1964 Dec | On polyiamonds: shapes that are made out of equilateral triangles |
| 1965 Jan | Some comments by Dr. Matrix on symmetries and reversals |
| 1965 Feb | Tetrahedrons in nature and architecture, and puzzles involving this simplest polyhedron |
| 1965 Mar | A new group of short problems |
| 1965 Apr | The infinite regress in philosophy, literature and mathematical proof |
| 1965 May | The lattice of integers considered as an orchard or a billiard table |
| 1965 Jun | Some diversions and problems from Mr. O'Gara, the postman |
| 1965 Jul | On the relation between mathematics and the ordered patterns of Op art [cover] |
| 1965 Aug | Thoughts on the task of communication with intelligent organisms on other worlds |
| 1965 Sep | The superellipse: a curve that lies between the ellipse and the rectangle |
| 1965 Oct | Pentominoes and polyominoes: five games and a sampling of problems |
| 1965 Nov | A selection of elementary word and number problems |
| 1965 Dec | Magic stars, graphs and polyhedrons |
| 1966 Jan | Dr. Matrix returns, now in the guise of a neo-Freudian psychonumeranalyst |
| 1966 Feb | Recreational numismatics, or a purse of coin puzzles |
| 1966 Mar | The hierarchy of infinities and the problems it spawns |
| 1966 Apr | The eerie mathematical art of Maurits C. Escher |
| 1966 May | How to cook a puzzle, or mathematical one-uppery |
| 1966 Jun | The persistence (and futility) of efforts to trisect the angle |
| 1966 Jul | Freud's friend Wilhelm Fliess and his theory of male and female life cycles |
| 1966 Aug | Puzzles that can be solved by reasoning based on elementary physical principles |
| 1966 Sep | The problem of Mrs. Perkins' quilt |
| 1966 Oct | Can the shuffling of cards (and other apparently random events) be reversed? |
| 1966 Nov | Is it possible to visualize a four-dimensional figure? |
| 1966 Dec | The multiple charms of Pascal's triangle |
| 1967 Jan | Dr. Matrix delivers a talk on acrostics |
| 1967 Feb | Mathematical strategies for two-person contests |
| 1967 Mar | An array of problems that can be solved with elementary mathematical techniques |
| 1967 Apr | The amazing feats of professional mental calculators, and some tricks of the trade |
| 1967 May | Cube-root extraction and the calendar trick, or how to cheat in mathematics |
| 1967 Jun | The polyhex and the polyabolo, polygonal jigsaw puzzle pieces |
| 1967 Jul | Of sprouts and Brussels sprouts, games with a topological flavor |
| 1967 Aug | In which a computer prints out mammoth polygonal factorials |
| 1967 Sep | Double acrostics, stylized Victorian ancestors of today's crossword puzzle |
| 1967 Oct | Problems that are built on the knight's move in chess |
| 1967 Nov | A mixed bag of logical and illogical problems to solve |
| 1967 Dec | Game theory is applied (for a change) to games |
| 1968 Jan | The beauties of the square, as expounded by Dr. Matrix to rehabilitate the hippie |
| 1968 Feb | Combinatorial problems involving tree graphs and forests of trees |
| 1968 Mar | A short treatise on the useless elegance of perfect numbers and amicable pairs |
| 1968 Apr | Puzzles and tricks with a dollar bill |
| 1968 May | Circles and spheres, and how they kiss and pack |
| 1968 Jun | Combinatorial possibilities in a pack of shuffled cards |
| 1968 Jul | On the meaning of randomness and some ways of achieving it |
| 1968 Aug | An array of puzzles and tricks, with a few traps for the unwary |
| 1968 Sep | Counting systems and the relationship between numbers and the real world |
| 1968 Oct | MacMahon's color triangles and the joys of fitting them together |
| 1968 Nov | On the ancient lore of dice and the odds against making a point |
| 1968 Dec | The world of the Möbius strip: endless, edgeless and one-sided |
| 1969 Jan | Dr. Matrix gives his explanation of why Mr. Nixon was elected President |
| 1969 Feb | Boolean algebra, Venn diagrams and the propositional calculus |
| 1969 Mar | The multiple fascinations of the Fibonacci sequence |
| 1969 Apr | An octet of problems that emphasize gamesmanship, logic and probability |
| 1969 May | The rambling random walk and its gambling equivalent |
| 1969 Jun | Random walks, by semidrunk bugs and others, on the square and on the cube |
| 1969 Jul | Tricks, games and puzzles that employ matches as counters and line segments |
| 1969 Aug | Simplicity as a scientific concept: Does nature keep her accounts on a thumbnail? |
| 1969 Sep | Geometric constructions with a compass and a straightedge, and also with a compass alone |
| 1969 Oct | A numeranalysis by Dr. Matrix of the lunar flight of Apollo 11 |
| 1969 Nov | A new pencil-and-paper game based on inductive reasoning [cover] |
| 1969 Dec | A handful of combinatorial problems based on dominoes |
| 1970 Jan | The abacus: primitive but effective digital computer |
| 1970 Feb | Nine new puzzles to solve |
| 1970 Mar | Cyclic numbers and their properties |
| 1970 Apr | Some mathematical curiosities embedded in the solar system |
| 1970 May | Of optical illusions, from figures that are undecidable to hot dogs that float |
| 1970 Jun | Elegant triangle theorems not to be found in Euclid |
| 1970 Jul | Diophantine analysis and the problem of Fermat's legendary last theorem |
| 1970 Aug | Backward run numbers, letters, words and sentences until boggles the mind |
| 1970 Sep | On the cyclical curves generated by wheels that roll along wheels |
| 1970 Oct | The fantastic combinations of John Conway's new solitaire game "life" |
| 1970 Nov | A new collection of short problems and the answers to some of "life's" |
| 1970 Dec | The paradox of the nontransitive dice and the elusive principle of indifference |
| 1971 Jan | Lessons from Dr. Matrix in chess and numerology |
| 1971 Feb | On cellular automata, self-reproduction, the Garden of Eden and the game "life" [cover] |
| 1971 Mar | The orders of infinity, the topological nature of dimension and "supertasks" |
| 1971 Apr | Geometric fallacies: hidden errors pave the road to absurd conclusions |
| 1971 May | The combinatorial richness of folding a piece of paper |
| 1971 Jun | The Turing game and the question it presents: Can a computer think? |
| 1971 Jul | Quickie problems: not hard, but look out for the curves |
| 1971 Aug | Ticktacktoe and its complications |
| 1971 Sep | The plaiting of Plato's polyhedrons and the asymmetrical yin-yang-lee |
| 1971 Oct | New puzzles from the game of Halma, the noble ancestor of Chinese checkers |
| 1971 Nov | Advertising premiums to beguile the mind: classics by Sam Loyd, master puzzle-poser |
| 1971 Dec | Further encounters with touching cubes, and the paradoxes of Zeno as "supertasks" |
| 1972 Jan | How to triumph at nim by playing safe, and John Horton Conway's game "Hackenbush" |
| 1972 Feb | Dr. Matrix poses some heteroliteral puzzles while peddling perpetual motion in Houston |
| 1972 Mar | The graceful graphs of Solomon Golomb, or how to number a graph parsimoniously |
| 1972 Apr | A topological problem with a fresh twist, and eight other new recreational puzzles |
| 1972 May | Challenging chess tasks for puzzle buffs and answers to the recreational problems |
| 1972 Jun | A miscellany of transcendental problems: simple to state but not at all easy to solve |
| 1972 Jul | Amazing mathematical card tricks that do not require prestidigitation |
| 1972 Aug | The curious properties of the Gray code and how it can be used to solve puzzles |
| 1972 Sep | Pleasurable problems with polycubes, and the winning strategy for Slither |
| 1972 Oct | Why the long arm of coincidence is usually not as long as it seems |
| 1972 Nov | On the practical uses and bizarre abuses of Sir Francis Bacon's biliteral cipher |
| 1972 Dec | Knotty problems with a two-hole torus |
| 1973 Jan | Sim, Chomp and Race Track: new games for the intellect (and not for Lady Luck) |
| 1973 Feb | Up-and-down elevator games and Piet Hein's mechanical puzzles |
| 1973 Mar | The calculating rods of John Napier, the eccentric father of the logarithm |
| 1973 Apr | How to turn a chessboard into a computer and to calculate with negabinary numbers |
| 1973 May | A new miscellany of problems, and encores for Race Track, Sim, Chomp and elevators |
| 1973 Jun | Plotting the crossing number of graphs |
| 1973 Jul | Free will revisited, with a mind-bending prediction paradox by William Newcomb |
| 1973 Aug | An astounding self-test of clairvoyance by Dr. Matrix |
| 1973 Sep | Problems on the surface of a sphere offer an entertaining introduction to point sets |
| 1973 Oct | "Look-see" diagrams that offer visual proof of complex algebraic formulas |
| 1973 Nov | Fantastic patterns traced by programmed "worms" |
| 1973 Dec | On expressing integers as the sum of cubes and other unsolved number-theory problems |
| 1974 Jan | The combinatorial basis of the "I Ching," the Chinese book of divination and wisdom [cover] |
| 1974 Feb | Cram, crosscram and quadraphage: new games having elusive winning strategies |
| 1974 Mar | Reflections on Newcomb's problem: a prediction and free-will dilemma |
| 1974 Apr | Nine challenging problems, some rational and some not |
| 1974 May | On the contradictions of time travel |
| 1974 Jun | Dr. Matrix brings his numerological Science to bear on the occult powers of the pyramid |
| 1974 Jul | On the patterns and the unusual properties of figurate numbers |
| 1974 Aug | On the fanciful history and the creative challenges of the puzzle game of tangrams |
| 1974 Sep | More on tangrams: Combinatorial problems and the game possibilities of snug tangrams |
| 1974 Oct | On the paradoxical situations that arise from nontransitive relations |
| 1974 Nov | Some new and dramatic demonstrations of number theorems with playing cards |
| 1974 Dec | The arts as combinatorial mathematics, or how to compose like Mozart with dice |
| 1975 Jan | The curious magic of anamorphic art [cover] |
| 1975 Feb | How the absence of anything leads to thoughts of nothing |
| 1975 Mar | From rubber ropes to rolling cubes, a miscellany of refreshing problems |
| 1975 Apr | Six sensational discoveries that somehow or another have escaped public attention |
| 1975 May | On the remarkable Császár polyhedron and its applications in problem solving |
| 1975 Jun | Games of strategy for two players: star nim, meander, dodgem and rex |
| 1975 Jul | On tessellating the plane with convex polygon tiles |
| 1975 Aug | More about tiling the plane: the possibilities of polyominoes, polyiamonds, and polyhexes |
| 1975 Sep | Dr. Matrix finds numerological wonders in the King James Bible |
| 1975 Oct | Concerning an effort to demonstrate extrasensory perception by machine |
| 1975 Nov | On map projections (with special reference to some inspired ones) [cover] |
| 1975 Dec | A random assortment of puzzles, together with reader responses to earlier problems |
| 1976 Jan | A breakthrough in magic squares, and the first perfect magic cube |
| 1976 Feb | Some elegant brick-packing problems, and a new order-7 perfect magic cube |
| 1976 Mar | On the fabric of inductive logic, and some probability paradoxes |
| 1976 Apr | Snarks, Boojums and other conjectures related to the four-color-map theorem |
| 1976 May | A few words about everything there was, is and ever will be |
| 1976 Jun | Catalan numbers: an integer sequence that materializes in unexpected places |
| 1976 Jul | Fun and serious business with the small electronic calculator |
| 1976 Aug | The symmetrical arrangement of the stars on the American flag and related matters |
| 1976 Sep | John Horton Conway's book covers an infinity of games |
| 1976 Oct | Combinatorial problems, some old, some new and all newly attacked by computer |
| 1976 Nov | In which DM (Dr. Matrix) is revealed as the guru of PM (Pentagonal Meditation) |
| 1976 Dec | In which "monster" curves force redefinition of the word "curve" |
| 1977 Jan | Extraordinary nonperiodic tiling that enriches the theory of tiles [cover] |
| 1977 Feb | The flip-strip sonnet, the lipogram and other mad modes of wordplay |
| 1977 Mar | Cornering a queen leads unexpectedly into corners of the theory of numbers |
| 1977 Apr | The pool-table triangle, a limerick paradox and divers other challenges |
| 1977 May | The "jump proof" and its similarity to the toppling of a row of dominoes |
| 1977 Jun | The concept of negative numbers and the difficulty of grasping it |
| 1977 Jul | Cutting things into equal parts leads into significant areas of mathematics |
| 1977 Aug | A new kind of cipher that would take millions of years to break |
| 1977 Sep | On conic sections, ruled surfaces and other manifestations of the hyperbola |
| 1977 Oct | On playing New Eleusis, the game that simulates the search for truth |
| 1977 Nov | In which joining sets of points by lines leads into diverse (and diverting) paths |
| 1977 Dec | Dr. Matrix goes to California to apply punk to rock study |
| 1978 Jan | The sculpture of Miguel Berrocal can be taken apart like an interlocking mechanical puzzle |
| 1978 Feb | On checker jumping, the Amazon game, weird dice, card tricks and other playful pastimes |
| 1978 Mar | Count Dracula, Alice, Portia and many others consider various twists of logic |
| 1978 Apr | White and brown music, fractal curves and one-over-f fluctuations [cover] |
| 1978 May | The Bells: versatile numbers that can count partitions of a set, primes and even rhymes |
| 1978 Jun | A mathematical zoo of astounding critters, imaginary and otherwise |
| 1978 Jul | On Charles Sanders Peirce: philosopher and gamesman |
| 1978 Aug | A Möbius band has a finite thickness, and so it is actually a twisted prism |
| 1978 Sep | Puzzling over a problem-solving matrix, cubes of many colors and three-dimensional dominoes |
| 1978 Oct | Puzzles and number-theory problems arising from the curious fractions of ancient Egypt |
| 1978 Nov | In which a mathematical aesthetic is applied to modern minimal art |
| 1978 Dec | Is it a superintelligent robot or does Dr. Matrix ride again? |
| 1979 Jan | The diverse pleasures of circles that are tangent to one another |
| 1979 Feb | About rectangling rectangles, parodying Poe and many another pleasing problem |
| 1979 Mar | On altering the past, delaying the future and other ways of tampering with time |
| 1979 Apr | In which players of Tic-tac-toe are taught to hunt bigger game |
| 1979 May | How to be a psychic, even if you are a horse or some other animal |
| 1979 Jun | Chess problems on a higher plane, including mirror images, rotations and the superqueen |
| 1979 Jul | Douglas R. Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher, Bach" |
| 1979 Aug | The imaginableness of the imaginary numbers |
| 1979 Sep | In some patterns of numbers or words there may be less than meets the eye |
| 1979 Oct | Some packing problems that cannot be solved by sitting on the suitcase |
| 1979 Nov | The random number omega bids fair to hold the mysteries of the universe |
| 1979 Dec | A pride of problems, including one that is virtually impossible |
| 1980 Jan | Checkers, a game that can be more interesting than one might think |
| 1980 Feb | The coloring of unusual maps leads into uncharted territory |
| 1980 Mar | Graphs that can help cannibals, missionaries, wolves, goats and cabbages get there from here |
| 1980 Apr | Fun with eggs: uncooked, cooked and mathematic |
| 1980 May | What unifies dinner guests, strolling schoolgirls and handcuffed prisoners? |
| 1980 Jun | The capture of the monster: a mathematical group with a ridiculous number of elements |
| 1980 Jul | The pleasures of doing Science and technology in the planiverse |
| 1980 Aug | On the fine art of putting players, pills and points into their proper pigeonholes |
| 1980 Sep | Dr. Matrix, like Mr. Holmes, comes to an untimely and mysterious end |
| 1980 Oct | From counting votes to making votes count: the mathematics of elections |
| 1980 Nov | Taxicab geometry offers a free ride to a non-Euclidean locale |
| 1980 Dec | Patterns in primes are a clue to the strong law of small numbers |
| 1981 Feb | Gauss's congruence theory was mod as early as 1801 |
| 1981 Apr | How Lavinia finds a room on University Avenue, and other geometric problems |
| 1981 Jun | The inspired geometrical symmetries of Scott Kim |
| 1981 Aug | The abstract parabola fits the concrete world |
| 1981 Oct | Euclid's parallel postulate and its modern offspring |
| 1981 Dec | The Laffer curve and other laughs in current economics |
| 1983 Aug | Tasks you cannot help finishing no matter how hard you try to block finishing them |
| 1983 Sep | The topology of knots, plus the results of Douglas Hofstadter's Luring Lottery |
| 1986 Jun | Casting a net on a checkerboard and other puzzles of the forest |
|
1. ^A Gardner's Dozen—Martin's Scientific American Cover Stories.
2. ^1 Scientific American January 1957 Issue: Mathematical Games Note: See this page and other similar pages indexed by date for all entries in the main table
3. ^Scientific American February 1957 Issue: Mathematical Games Note: See this page and other similar pages indexed by date for all entries in the main table
4. ^[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/books/review/undiluted-hocus-pocus-by-martin-gardner.html?_r=1 Book review of Martin Gardner's Undiluted Hocus-Pocus] by Teller, The New York Times, January 3, 2014
5. ^Scientific American March 1952 Issue: Logic Machines
6. ^Scientific American December 1956 Issue: Flexagons
7. ^Scientific American January 1967 Issue: Can Time go Backward?
8. ^Scientific American August 1998 Issue: A Quarter-Century of Recreational Mathematics
9. ^Scientific American March 2007 Issue: Is Beauty Truth and Truth Beauty? How Keats's famous line applies to math and science Review of Why Beauty is Truth: A History of Symmetry, by Ian Stewart