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Are Universes Thicker Than Blackberries?
s/t: Discourses on Godel, Magic Hexagrams, Little Red Riding Hood, and Other Mathematical and Pseudoscientific Topics
Martin Gardner—"one of the most brilliant men and gracious writers I have ever known," wrote Stephen Jay Gould—is the wittiest, most devastating debunker of scientific fraud and chicanery of our time. In this new book Gardner explores startling scientific concepts, such as the possibility of multiple universes and the theory that time can go backwards. Armed with his expert, skeptical eye, he examines the bizarre tangents produced by Freudians and deconstructionists in their critiques of "Little Red Riding Hood," and reveals the fallacies of pseudoscientific cures, from Dr. Bruno Bettelheim's erroneous theory of autism to the cruel farces of Facilitated Communication and Primal Scream Therapy. Ever prolific, and still engaging at the spry age of eighty-eight, Gardner has become an American institution unto himself, a writer to be celebrated.
Martin Gardner—"one of the most brilliant men and gracious writers I have ever known," wrote Stephen Jay Gould—is the wittiest, most devastating debunker of scientific fraud and chicanery of our time. In this new book Gardner explores startling scientific concepts, such as the possibility of multiple universes and the theory that time can go backwards. Armed with his expert, skeptical eye, he examines the bizarre tangents produced by Freudians and deconstructionists in their critiques of "Little Red Riding Hood," and reveals the fallacies of pseudoscientific cures, from Dr. Bruno Bettelheim's erroneous theory of autism to the cruel farces of Facilitated Communication and Primal Scream Therapy. Ever prolific, and still engaging at the spry age of eighty-eight, Gardner has become an American institution unto himself, a writer to be celebrated.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
2 people are currently reading
156 people want to read
About the author
Martin Gardner
496 books512 followersMartin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature (especially the writings of Lewis Carroll), philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion. He wrote the Mathematical Games column in Scientific American from 1956 to 1981, and published over 70 books.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 18, 2019
I was looking forward to a relaxing but engaging bit of theoretical physics for the lay reader, but this was nothing like I hoped for. Despite the title, subtitle, and cover art, the book is not even primarily about topics in physics and mathematics. More of the essays are devoted to literary authors, pseudo psychologists, and others whom Mr. Gardner despises or--less often--admires. The chapters are disconnected essays, book reviews, and columns here forming an odd collection. While I can appreciate that someone with a great deal of life experience ought to be allowed a little curmudgeonly commentary on the world, Gardner too often comes across as simultaneously voyeuristic and cranky, which does not make for edifying reading. I did not find it worth my while to read all the essays in the book.
January 7, 2025
I like Martin Gardner and was thrilled to find this - one I’d not heard of before- for $3 in a bookshop. He covers thoughts on math, science, religion, literature (I am always in awe of his analyses; literature analysis is out of my wheelhouse), and flimfammery pseudoscience. The largest section is that last one, as there is so much and it is fun to expose. Gardner includes some of the replies to his critiques, and his cogent rebuttals. And as is almost always the case, he leaves me with a list of books to find. As to literature, I quite enjoyed his takedown of Hemingway, who he apparently had the same opinion of as me.
Filled with thought-provoking questions (“Can Time Go Backward?”), obscure mystics, shared thoughts on topics such as induction, more hexagrams (he loved his topology), Möebius bands (I need to try some of the examples), this is a nice collection. I brought it with me on a trip to Europe, read a little on the flight over and then snippets here and there through the holidays and projects and ARC obligations.
Just a few curated notes (the rest are for just me):
[on David Deutsch’s Many Worlds Interpretation] “Because communication between universes is impossible, it is hard to imagine why a particle would bother to jump from one universe to another just to produce interference.”
[addendum to “A Skeptical Look at Karl Popperl] “Popper’s favorite example of a theory that cannot be falsified was Freudian analysis. This is surely wrong. Adolf Grünbaum, in The Foundations of Psychoanalysis (1984) shows clearly that psychoanalysis not only can be falsified, but that in fact it already had been.”
{Ah, the curse… uh, gift?… of Freud.}
“Ex-Communists and fellow travelers have a habit of turning from Marxism to another ideology, often Catholicism or some other religion. In [David] Bohm’s case it was a bounce toward Buddhism and Hinduism, and Krishnamurti.”
{Having just read a book from Om Swami, I find mysticism tiring.”
Filled with thought-provoking questions (“Can Time Go Backward?”), obscure mystics, shared thoughts on topics such as induction, more hexagrams (he loved his topology), Möebius bands (I need to try some of the examples), this is a nice collection. I brought it with me on a trip to Europe, read a little on the flight over and then snippets here and there through the holidays and projects and ARC obligations.
Just a few curated notes (the rest are for just me):
[on David Deutsch’s Many Worlds Interpretation] “Because communication between universes is impossible, it is hard to imagine why a particle would bother to jump from one universe to another just to produce interference.”
[addendum to “A Skeptical Look at Karl Popperl] “Popper’s favorite example of a theory that cannot be falsified was Freudian analysis. This is surely wrong. Adolf Grünbaum, in The Foundations of Psychoanalysis (1984) shows clearly that psychoanalysis not only can be falsified, but that in fact it already had been.”
{Ah, the curse… uh, gift?… of Freud.}
“Ex-Communists and fellow travelers have a habit of turning from Marxism to another ideology, often Catholicism or some other religion. In [David] Bohm’s case it was a bounce toward Buddhism and Hinduism, and Krishnamurti.”
{Having just read a book from Om Swami, I find mysticism tiring.”
October 6, 2021
This is a collection of odds and ends, essays on science, mathematics, pseudo-science, literature, psychology etc. Some were of interest, some, such as his detailed description of the last Oz book, not so. The essay on Karl Popper, however, contained a critique of a friend which led me to call an editor of The Skeptical Inquirer magazine who obligingly tracked down his original letter to Gardner.
April 13, 2008
nothing at all like i wanted it to be, this book is a collection of essays. i have a hard time getting past this format. I hate "essays" as a form of writing - they feel the need to be clever quickly and make each point as important as the last. But in this particular case, I just don't remember what was written. Nothing is jogged by looking at the cover. Therefore, I have to give this book poor marks. Anyhting this unstriking can't be worthwhile.
July 28, 2019
A delectable collection
This is the fifth collection of Martin Gardner's essays that I have read, and as usual I found them a pleasure to read. To repeat myself, let me say that once again the venerable champion of common sense assumes his role as the sorcerer's apprentice trying to sweep back the tide of pseudoscience. And once again he provides insight into just how overwhelming that task really is.
The thirty-one essays, many of which appeared in The Skeptical Inquirer, are sorted into five parts: Science, Mathematics, Religion, Literature, and Moonshine. As a special treat (!?) some clerihews and other poetic bits by Gardner's "friend" Armand T. Ringer are sprinkled throughout, especially at the beginning of chapters. One notes in passing that "Armand T. Ringer" is an anagram of "Martin Gardner." Also included is a short story by Gardner from The College Mathematics Journal entitled "Against the Odds" (Chapter 6), a pleasant tale about a gifted black boy and a prejudiced schoolmarm notable for a happy ending and a thoroughgoing sense of the politically correct.
The first essay, "Multiverses and Blackberries" is a discussion of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. I was surprised to learn that this mind-boggling take on QM has been "defended by such eminent physicists as Murray Gell-Mann, Stephen Hawking, and Steven Weinberg." (p. 3) I think they may have defended it at one time or another, but I doubt that they embraced it wholeheartedly! A physicist who has of course is Oxford University's David Deutsch. What Gardner reveals in this interesting piece is that there are two versions of the MWI of QM, one in which the many worlds are "abstractions such as numbers and triangles," and the other in which the many worlds are real. (p. 5)
The second and third essays are on the philosophy of science, a favorite Gardner topic, and a topic that he actually makes readable and interesting, one deflating Karl Popper and the other partly a personal remembrance and appreciation of Rudolf Carnap. And then we have "Some Thoughts About Induction" in which Gardner aligns himself with David Hume, Bertrand Russell and others on the possibility that we can really prove anything by induction. This essay includes this glancing blow at those who would imagine that we might discover the ultimate nature of things: "[Electrons] may be made of superstrings. If so, what are superstrings made of?"
Other essays include "The Strange Case of Garry Wills," and "The Vagueness of Krishnamurti" from Part III on Religion in which Gardner reveals his consummate interest in the intimate details of the lives of the famous, especially the non-flattering details. I was surprised to learn of Krishnamurti's various episodes of hanky-panky. Like Gardner I had always found him unreadable, but herein I learned that the probable sufficient secret of his success was his charismatic personality.
In Part V on Moonshine Gardner has some fun with the idea that Little Red Riding Hood is a symbolic story of emerging womanhood complete with the red hood symbolizing menstrual blood and the wolf's appetite being not entirely gastronomic. I think here revealed is Gardner's limited appreciation of the nature of certain kinds of literature, of which fairy tales and religious works are examples. Such works are necessarily symbolic since what they are about cannot be expressed in a strictly denotative way because to do so would offend or be in conflict with some particulars of whatever the current wisdom might be. Such "evolved" literatures must be accessible regardless of the taboos of the present society. Better than any of the commentary from Gardner or those he quotes on the tale is the amazing print on page 180 by Gustave Doré of Little Read Riding Hood in bed with the wolf. The primeval nature of the tale is exemplified by Little Red Riding Hood's appearance simultaneously as a little girl and as a small woman, and the wolf's large mouth and ready claws. Doré knew that this was one scary tale that penetrated the listener's subconscious.
Perhaps the most valuable essays in the book are "The Brutality of Dr. Bettelheim" and "Facilitated Communication: A Cruel Farce" (chapters 23 and 24). In the first, Gardner reminds us how Dr. Bruno Bettelheim in particular, and psychoanalytic theory in general, mistreated a generation (or two or three) of autistic children and especially their so-called "refrigerator mothers" through a gross misunderstanding of autism and how to treat it. Some of the material comes from Edward Dolnick's Madness on the Couch: Blaming the Victim in the Heyday of Psychoanalysis (1998), a book I reviewed favorably and recommend highly. In the second, Gardner reminds us of the fraudulent Quija board technique employed by some health workers using autistic children that had its heyday in the late eighties and early nineties before being exposed on Frontline and 60 Minutes. The disturbing thing about Gardner's report is that one of the true believers, Professor of Education Douglas Biklen, is still at Syracuse University and is still plying his trade.
One of the best reasons for reading Gardner is to appreciate how clear his expression is, and how readable he makes just about any subject. He has a gift for making the abstract concrete and the obtuse transparent.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
This is the fifth collection of Martin Gardner's essays that I have read, and as usual I found them a pleasure to read. To repeat myself, let me say that once again the venerable champion of common sense assumes his role as the sorcerer's apprentice trying to sweep back the tide of pseudoscience. And once again he provides insight into just how overwhelming that task really is.
The thirty-one essays, many of which appeared in The Skeptical Inquirer, are sorted into five parts: Science, Mathematics, Religion, Literature, and Moonshine. As a special treat (!?) some clerihews and other poetic bits by Gardner's "friend" Armand T. Ringer are sprinkled throughout, especially at the beginning of chapters. One notes in passing that "Armand T. Ringer" is an anagram of "Martin Gardner." Also included is a short story by Gardner from The College Mathematics Journal entitled "Against the Odds" (Chapter 6), a pleasant tale about a gifted black boy and a prejudiced schoolmarm notable for a happy ending and a thoroughgoing sense of the politically correct.
The first essay, "Multiverses and Blackberries" is a discussion of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. I was surprised to learn that this mind-boggling take on QM has been "defended by such eminent physicists as Murray Gell-Mann, Stephen Hawking, and Steven Weinberg." (p. 3) I think they may have defended it at one time or another, but I doubt that they embraced it wholeheartedly! A physicist who has of course is Oxford University's David Deutsch. What Gardner reveals in this interesting piece is that there are two versions of the MWI of QM, one in which the many worlds are "abstractions such as numbers and triangles," and the other in which the many worlds are real. (p. 5)
The second and third essays are on the philosophy of science, a favorite Gardner topic, and a topic that he actually makes readable and interesting, one deflating Karl Popper and the other partly a personal remembrance and appreciation of Rudolf Carnap. And then we have "Some Thoughts About Induction" in which Gardner aligns himself with David Hume, Bertrand Russell and others on the possibility that we can really prove anything by induction. This essay includes this glancing blow at those who would imagine that we might discover the ultimate nature of things: "[Electrons] may be made of superstrings. If so, what are superstrings made of?"
Other essays include "The Strange Case of Garry Wills," and "The Vagueness of Krishnamurti" from Part III on Religion in which Gardner reveals his consummate interest in the intimate details of the lives of the famous, especially the non-flattering details. I was surprised to learn of Krishnamurti's various episodes of hanky-panky. Like Gardner I had always found him unreadable, but herein I learned that the probable sufficient secret of his success was his charismatic personality.
In Part V on Moonshine Gardner has some fun with the idea that Little Red Riding Hood is a symbolic story of emerging womanhood complete with the red hood symbolizing menstrual blood and the wolf's appetite being not entirely gastronomic. I think here revealed is Gardner's limited appreciation of the nature of certain kinds of literature, of which fairy tales and religious works are examples. Such works are necessarily symbolic since what they are about cannot be expressed in a strictly denotative way because to do so would offend or be in conflict with some particulars of whatever the current wisdom might be. Such "evolved" literatures must be accessible regardless of the taboos of the present society. Better than any of the commentary from Gardner or those he quotes on the tale is the amazing print on page 180 by Gustave Doré of Little Read Riding Hood in bed with the wolf. The primeval nature of the tale is exemplified by Little Red Riding Hood's appearance simultaneously as a little girl and as a small woman, and the wolf's large mouth and ready claws. Doré knew that this was one scary tale that penetrated the listener's subconscious.
Perhaps the most valuable essays in the book are "The Brutality of Dr. Bettelheim" and "Facilitated Communication: A Cruel Farce" (chapters 23 and 24). In the first, Gardner reminds us how Dr. Bruno Bettelheim in particular, and psychoanalytic theory in general, mistreated a generation (or two or three) of autistic children and especially their so-called "refrigerator mothers" through a gross misunderstanding of autism and how to treat it. Some of the material comes from Edward Dolnick's Madness on the Couch: Blaming the Victim in the Heyday of Psychoanalysis (1998), a book I reviewed favorably and recommend highly. In the second, Gardner reminds us of the fraudulent Quija board technique employed by some health workers using autistic children that had its heyday in the late eighties and early nineties before being exposed on Frontline and 60 Minutes. The disturbing thing about Gardner's report is that one of the true believers, Professor of Education Douglas Biklen, is still at Syracuse University and is still plying his trade.
One of the best reasons for reading Gardner is to appreciate how clear his expression is, and how readable he makes just about any subject. He has a gift for making the abstract concrete and the obtuse transparent.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
August 6, 2018
An Uneven Collection of Essays By An Old Master
As a science/math/blackberry buff I was attracted by the title. Some of the essays are extremely good but a large number are average. The essays are grouped into 5 sections of which I found 3 (Science, Math, Literature) of interest.
The Science section looks mostly at some of the philosophy of science. The title piece explores the "many worlds" interpretation of Quantum mechanics and divides physicists into two groups - those who believe the MWI is real and those who think that it is merely mathematics. He then takes a few potshots at Karl Popper (which I disagreed with), engages in some personal reminiscences on Rudolf Carnap and writes very well about Induction. I believe I've read the essay on time travel before and it includes Wheeler's whimsical conjecture that the universe is made up of a single electron traveling back and forth in time - great fun.
The highlights (for me) in the Math section include the essay on Magic Hexagrams and the short story "Against the Odds" about a young student who succeeds in spite of an early math teacher. I'm also currently rereading Flatterland: Like Flatland, Only More So with my youngest - its a great book but Gardner's review is only surface level - pun intended.
As to the Literature section - as a child I read as much of the Wizard of Oz series that I could find; the essay on the "Tin Woodman of Oz" and the origin of the character names was both humorous and fascinating. The Gardner's negative take on Hemingway looks at his relationships with women - not bad but if you've been into Hemingway this stuff is well known. Having never heard of Edgar Wallace nor his book "The Green Archer" Gardner's coverage was less than compelling.
The section on Religion and the final section on Psychology and Psychics , except for the for the first article on interpretations of Red Riding Hood, were dated and boring. Aside from a reasonable dissing of Freud and a passable expose of Bruno Bettelheim for his highly damaging influence on the treatment of autistic children he debunks several scam artists but here again the writing did not hold my interest.
Overall a mixed bag. A few bright spots but not really worth purchasing especially if you are short on shelf space but OK for a library read.
As a science/math/blackberry buff I was attracted by the title. Some of the essays are extremely good but a large number are average. The essays are grouped into 5 sections of which I found 3 (Science, Math, Literature) of interest.
The Science section looks mostly at some of the philosophy of science. The title piece explores the "many worlds" interpretation of Quantum mechanics and divides physicists into two groups - those who believe the MWI is real and those who think that it is merely mathematics. He then takes a few potshots at Karl Popper (which I disagreed with), engages in some personal reminiscences on Rudolf Carnap and writes very well about Induction. I believe I've read the essay on time travel before and it includes Wheeler's whimsical conjecture that the universe is made up of a single electron traveling back and forth in time - great fun.
The highlights (for me) in the Math section include the essay on Magic Hexagrams and the short story "Against the Odds" about a young student who succeeds in spite of an early math teacher. I'm also currently rereading Flatterland: Like Flatland, Only More So with my youngest - its a great book but Gardner's review is only surface level - pun intended.
As to the Literature section - as a child I read as much of the Wizard of Oz series that I could find; the essay on the "Tin Woodman of Oz" and the origin of the character names was both humorous and fascinating. The Gardner's negative take on Hemingway looks at his relationships with women - not bad but if you've been into Hemingway this stuff is well known. Having never heard of Edgar Wallace nor his book "The Green Archer" Gardner's coverage was less than compelling.
The section on Religion and the final section on Psychology and Psychics , except for the for the first article on interpretations of Red Riding Hood, were dated and boring. Aside from a reasonable dissing of Freud and a passable expose of Bruno Bettelheim for his highly damaging influence on the treatment of autistic children he debunks several scam artists but here again the writing did not hold my interest.
Overall a mixed bag. A few bright spots but not really worth purchasing especially if you are short on shelf space but OK for a library read.
October 16, 2021
There were several concepts explored that were too vast for me to really comprehend. I’m not a huge fan, typically, of math and philosophy.
I picked this up entirely based on the curious title and I was quickly won over by the author’s style. It has really nice flow and I found his use of language engaging and thoughtful. (Love love love when I have to look up definitions and the words weren’t arbitrarily included.) There is also a lot of range of subjects explored.
The author also included lots of other literary works that seem equally fascinating. I think my ‘want to read’ list gained at least twenty other books.
I picked this up entirely based on the curious title and I was quickly won over by the author’s style. It has really nice flow and I found his use of language engaging and thoughtful. (Love love love when I have to look up definitions and the words weren’t arbitrarily included.) There is also a lot of range of subjects explored.
The author also included lots of other literary works that seem equally fascinating. I think my ‘want to read’ list gained at least twenty other books.
April 4, 2020
Meh! I liked the title a lot and borrowed the book from library. Didn’t realize that it was just a collection of articles by Martin. The articles are fine, but they do not make a book. I liked some articles about Science, Math, and Philosophy, but the rest were just OK. I will pick up a better book by Martin next time.
April 29, 2011
Some of the essays in this book are quite interesting; for example, an essay about the possibility of multiple universes, and another about the direction of time. But the vast majority of the essays are boring. They just seem--irrelevant. Perhaps they would be interesting to someone who lived 50 or 100 years ago. Not just one, but two essays about a little-known novel, The Green Archer. An essay about Ernest Hemingway (my least favorite American author) and his lover, Jane Kendall. An entire section of essays about bad, disreputable psychics. A section of essays about forgotten, false messiahs. I used to love reading Martin Gardner's essays in Scientific American. I guess these are his essays that didn't quite make it.
May 14, 2009
Apparently no-one is looking out for Martin Gardner's reputation as he gets older: someone should have stopped him from publishing this book. Gardner was for decades a brilliant and incisive thinker, but as happens to us all (or almost all) he has declined in old age. This is a poorly edited, rambling, and largely uninteresting collection of odds and ends about science, philosophy, literature and pseudoscience that should never have seen the light of day. Don't bother.
May 20, 2007
A fun read full of math and physics conjecture delivered by a fellow who can make the subject at least partially understandable.
March 25, 2008
I learned that Universes are, indeed, thicker than blackberries.
October 17, 2008
Not as captivating as I had hoped.
September 8, 2009
Martin Gardner is always good to read. Part I in this book on science is one of his best.
January 19, 2014
A compilation of essays with little or no coherence.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews