Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games Cdr Edition

Love it but cd rom is not useful anymore

Martin Gardner's 30 years of Mathematical Games columns in Scientific American magazine are some of the most fun and interesting reading I've enjoyed. I searched out back issues in the high school library, had my own subscription, and collected as many of the books as I could find. When I was looking for one of the books I didn't have and found this complete collection, I immediately ordered it. There are very few authors in any field who are as clear in their writing and as enthusiastic in their delivery as he is. The content is easily worth the full 5 stars.But the reason I dropped the rating to 4 for this particular edition is its sometimes haphazard quality of image scans. In the worst cases, the color or shading in the original figures is now black-and-white and of such high contrast that important distinctions are mostly or completely lost. For example, the reversi piece colors in figure 29 of "New Mathematical Diversions" are indistinguishable as are the four-color map areas (of all things!) in figure 43. Many figures show moire patterns from rescanning the original halftones. Yet other figures have been reproduced with much greater care, even in color. Some pages with landscape layout have been rotated for easier reading but others have not. In a few cases, the black-and-white photographs in my books have been replaced with much better color photos. Some books are missing a back cover scan.The oddest example though, and somehow in keeping with the topic, is figure 109 in "Fractal Music". In my copy of the book, this is a reproduction of Magritte's "The Two Mysteries" and the caption says so. In this edition, it is a redrawn version and the caption now says it is "a caricature" of the Magritte work. At least 4 of the books appear to be affected by poor images and at least 6 of them appear to be fine.Despite these problems, it's very handy to have the complete set of books in one place. But I'll be keeping the 4 books with the bad scans until a new edition fixes them.

The current version of MacOS, Catalina, does not support Apple_HFS, the file system on this disk. So there's a fair amount of work before Mac users can use this.I'm hoping that I will be able to get to the content, and it will be as good as promised. so I might edit this review later.It took about 2 1/2 hours for this software developer to download the necessary tools and type the necessary commands to get information off of this disk. Anyone buying older CD-ROMS has got to beware. It's not just the file format has to be one that is currently readable, and Adobe's PDF has done well in that regard, but also the file system format, and Apple did the public and the publishing world a huge disservice removing HFS support from MacOS. Read-Only access would have been good enough.As others have noted, these are reprints from the printed books, not the Scientific American articles, so some color illustrations were replaced with black-and-white, and that affects readability.On the plus side, you get to read Martin Gardner. All his columns, plus an interview with him, and a bit of a biography.

I used to own several of Martin Gardner's books, but unfortunately lent them to my daughter who promptly lost them. This CD has brought back lots of happy memories, plus the bonus of reading some of the books that I had never read before. Martin Gardner and Scientific American are part of my youth (even though they couldn't spell true English). They broadened my horizons and contributed to my love of maths (math to some of you).

This is the ultimate collection for a great price. Anybody into recreational math or even into interesting puzzles will love this. Math is everywhere and it is explained in a fun way. Hard to find Mr. Gardner's Scientific American collections anymore so this is a major treat.

WONDERFULNOW A BARGAINGREAT FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO SEE THE MOST INTERESTING PARTS OF MATHEMATICS AND PUZZLES.MARTIN HAS INSPIRED MANYAND PROBABLY EXPANDED MANY MINDS, INCREASED LIFETIME ABILITIES, FRIENDSHIPS, MAYBE EVEN SUCCESS IN READERS LIVES.

There little I can add from previous reviews except I'm in agreement. This is an incredible collection of timeless classic Scientific American articles. Scientific American does not offer these as reprints. Plus there a a number of other Martin Gardner items that never were in Scientific American. I'll use these in my classes.

This is an excellent way to search for an item and to read any updates as opposed to hunting via the originally published fifteen book Canon or thru old back issues at the library.

All of Gardners works on my tablet and computer...wow! His books are so popular and have inspired many who have gone on to enjoy maths the rest of their lives.

i'm a fan