Irving Joshua Matrix — born (Japan, 1908) as Irving Joshua Bush and commonly known as Dr. (I. J.) Matrix — was a fictitious polymath scientist, scholar, and entrepreneur who made extraordinary contributions to perpetual motion engineering, Biblical cryptography and numerology, pyramid power, pentagonal meditation, extra-sensory perception, psychic metallurgy, and a number of other topics. He was an accomplished prestidigitator and an intuitive mathematician, two qualities which he put to good use in most of his enterprises. Being a fictitious character he could perform tasks that were logically impossible; for example, he could "clap one hand in the air" when summoning a waiter or a minion.
Dr. Matrix was the satirical creation of popular mathematics columnist Martin Gardner (1914-2010), who reported some of his doings in his "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American beginning in 1959. The intent was partly to provide colorful context to mathematical puzzles and curiosities, partly as a spoof of various pseudo-scientific theories, and always to provide a humorous introduction to the serious topic at hand.
Read more about Irving Joshua Matrix: Fictitious Biography
Famous quotes containing the words irving, joshua and/or matrix:
“There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse; as I have found in travelling in a stage- coach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position and be bruised in a new place.”
—Washington Irving (1783–1859)
“Behold the walls of Jericho. Maybe not as thick as the ones that Joshua blew down with his trumpet, but a lot safer. See, I have no trumpet. Now just to show you my heart’s in the right place, I’ll give you my best pair of pajamas. Do you mind joining the Israelites?”
—Robert Riskin (1897–1955)
““The matrix is God?”
“In a manner of speaking, although it would be more accurate ... to say that the matrix has a God, since this being’s omniscience and omnipotence are assumed to be limited to the matrix.”
“If it has limits, it isn’t omnipotent.”
“Exactly.... Cyberspace exists, insofar as it can be said to exist, by virtue of human agency.””
—William Gibson (b. 1948)