Mathemagician

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. 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

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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