2008 Woodie Awards
Mathemagician shows his magic
Clay Cunningham
Issue date: 11/26/08 Section: The News
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During the performance, Arthur volunteered a few people out of the crowd to come up to the stage and figure out math problems with calculators while he figured out the problems in his head. Benjamin amazed the audience with his capability to do math problems in his head.
Information Specialist Norma Mendoza, who helped set up the event, enjoyed the performance.
"I think it was great, it was informative," Mendoza said.
Benjamin showed the audience his method of the multiplication process and numbers squared. He also had a method of transforming numbers into letters.
Science professor Dr. Carl Knight said that Dr. Benjamin put on a great performance.
"He made mathematics challenging and fun," Knight said.
Benjamin started out doing magic shows for high schools before he moved up to college. He has been giving the mathemagician presentations for 30 years, traveling across the U.S. as well as to other countries such as Spain, Japan, England, Portugal, Australia and the Netherlands.
Benjamin's first book, titled Mathemagics, was published in 1993, but eventually went out of print. Secrets of Mental Math, published in 2006, was the book he was promoting during his performance.
"I like magic, I like math, it was a natural combination," Benjamin said.
Benjamin's goal is to teach students his methods of how to do math.
"The point of my show is not for the students to see how smart I am, but to see how smart they are," Benjamin said.
Benjamin also teaches a course called the Joy of Mathematics. The course teaches numbers, counting numbers, algebra, geometry, calculus, pi mathematical magic.
Benjamin was inspired by recreational mathematician Martin Gardener, who had a column on mathematical games in Scientific American magazine for over 25 years.
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