History
These dice were discovered by George Sicherman of Buffalo, New York and were originally reported by Martin Gardner in a 1978 article in Scientific American.
The numbers can be arranged so that all pairs of numbers on opposing sides sum to equal numbers, 5 for the first and 9 for the second.
Later, in a letter to Sicherman, Gardner mentioned that a magician he knew had anticipated Sicherman's discovery. For generalizations of the Sicherman dice to more than two dice and noncubical dice, see Broline (1979), Gallian and Rusin (1979), Brunson and Swift (1997/1998), and Fowler and Swift (1999).
Read more about this topic: Sicherman Dice
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”
—Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)
“To summarize the contentions of this paper then. Firstly, the phrase ‘the meaning of a word’ is a spurious phrase. Secondly and consequently, a re-examination is needed of phrases like the two which I discuss, ‘being a part of the meaning of’ and ‘having the same meaning.’ On these matters, dogmatists require prodding: although history indeed suggests that it may sometimes be better to let sleeping dogmatists lie.”
—J.L. (John Langshaw)