{{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".<ref name=mathem>"Mathemagic" by Royal Vale Heath and Jerome Sydney Meyer, Simon and Schuster, New York (1933)</ref>
The name "mathemagician" was probably first applied to Martin Gardner, but has since been used to describe many mathematician/magicians, including Arthur T. Benjamin,<ref>Albers, Donald J. "Art Benjamin - Mathemagician." ''Math Horizons'', November 1998, 14-18.</ref> Persi Diaconis,<ref>''[https://www.jstor.org/stable/25678003?origin=JSTOR-pdf&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents Professor of <s>Magic</s> Mathematics]'' by Don Albers and Persi Diaconis, ''Math Horizons'' Vo. 2, No 3 (February 1995), pp. 11-15</ref> and Colm Mulcahy.<ref>[http://www.mathaware.org/mam/2014/committee/ Mathematics Awareness Month 2014: Mathematics, Magic, and Mystery] Committee Members</ref> 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."<ref>Diaconis, Persi. Quoted in: Albers, Donald J. "Professor of <s>Magic</s> Mathematics." ''Math Horizons'', February 1995, 11-15.</ref>
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 utilized 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 == <!-- *Matt Baker<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.news.gatech.edu/features/magic-math|title=The Magic of Math|website=www.news.gatech.edu|access-date=2019-09-20}}</ref> --> * Jin Akiyama * Arthur T. Benjamin * Persi Diaconis * Alex Elmsley * Richard Feynman * Karl Fulves * Martin Gardner * Norman Gilbreath * Ronald Graham * Vi Hart * Royal Vale Heath * Colm Mulcahy * W. W. Rouse Ball * Raymond Smullyan <!-- * Bernard Meulenbroek<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://mathemagician.tudelft.nl/|title=MatheMagician|website=mathemagician.tudelft.nl|access-date=2018-06-19}}</ref> --> <!-- *Tori Noquez<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/theater/magic-shows-online-helder-guimares-coronavirus.html|title=Is the Hand Quicker Than the Zoom Window?|website=www.nytimes.com|access-date=2020-10-10}}</ref> -->
== References == {{reflist}}
== Further reading == * Diaconis, Persi & Graham, Ron. ''[http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9510.html 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. ''[http://www.math.ucsd.edu/~ronspubs/13_05_juggling.pdf Juggling Mathematics and Magic]'' University of California, San Diego * Teixeira, Ricardo & Park, Jang Woo. ''[https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/11671?cookieSet=1#t=aboutBook Mathemagics: A Magical Journey Through Advanced Mathematics, Connecting More Than 60 Magic Tricks to High-Level Math]'' World Scientific, 2020. ISBN 978-9811215308.
Category:Magicians Category:Mathematics occupations