Mathemagician

Short description: Mathematician and magician

A mathemagician is a mathematician who is also a magician. The term "mathemagic" is believed to have been introduced by Royal Vale Heath with his 1933 book "Mathemagic".[1]

The name "mathemagician" was probably first applied to Martin Gardner, but has since been used to describe many mathematician/magicians, including Arthur T. Benjamin,[2] Persi Diaconis,[3] and Colm Mulcahy.[4] Diaconis has suggested that the reason so many mathematicians are magicians is that "inventing a magic trick and inventing a theorem are very similar activities."[5]

Mathemagician is a neologism, specifically a portmanteau, that combines mathematician and magician. A great number of self-working mentalism tricks rely on mathematical principles, such as Gilbreath's principle. Max Maven often utilizes this type of magic in his performance.

The Mathemagician is the name of a character in the 1961 children's book The Phantom Tollbooth. He is the ruler of Digitopolis, the kingdom of mathematics.

## Notable mathemagicians

* Arthur T. Benjamin
* Jin Akiyama
* Persi Diaconis
* Richard Feynman
* Karl Fulves
* Martin Gardner
* Ronald Graham
* Royal Vale Heath
* Colm Mulcahy
* Raymond Smullyan
* W. W. Rouse Ball
* Alex Elmsley
* Norman Laurence Gilbreath

## References

1. ↑ "Mathemagic" by Royal Vale Heath and Jerome Sydney Meyer, Simon and Schuster, New York (1933)
2. ↑ Albers, Donald J. "Art Benjamin - Mathemagician." Math Horizons, November 1998, 14-18.
3. ↑ Professor of ~~Magic~~ Mathematics by Don Albers and Persi Diaconis, Math Horizons Vo. 2, No 3 (February 1995), pp. 11-15
4. ↑ Mathematics Awareness Month 2014: Mathematics, Magic, and Mystery Committee Members
5. ↑ Diaconis, Persi. Quoted in: Albers, Donald J. "Professor of ~~Magic~~ Mathematics." Math Horizons, February 1995, 11-15.

## Further reading

* Diaconis, Persi & Graham, Ron. Magical Mathematics: The Mathematical Ideas That Animate Great Magic Tricks Princeton University Press, 2012. ISBN 0691169772
* Fulves, Karl. Self-working Number Magic, New York London : Dover Constable, 1983. ISBN 0486243915
* Gardner, Martin. Mathematics, Magic and Mystery, Dover, 1956. ISBN 0-486-20335-2
* Graham, Ron. Juggling Mathematics and Magic University of California, San Diego
* Teixeira, Ricardo & Park, Jang Woo. Mathemagics: A Magical Journey Through Advanced Mathematics, Connecting More Than 60 Magic Tricks to High-Level Math World Scientific, 2020. ISBN 978-9811215308.

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