Editing Recreational mathematics (section)

== People ==
<!--Linked from [[Mathematical game]]-->

Prominent practitioners and advocates of recreational mathematics have included professional and [[List of amateur mathematicians|amateur mathematicians]]:

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="white-space:nowrap;"
! Full name || Last name || Born || Died || Nationality
! Description
|-
| [[Lewis Carroll]] (Charles Dodgson) || Carroll || 1832 || 1898 || English
|style="white-space:normal;"| Mathematician, puzzlist and [[Anglican]] [[deacon]] best known as the author of ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'' and ''[[Through the Looking-Glass]].''
|-
| [[Sam Loyd]] || Loyd || 1841 || 1911 || American
|style="white-space:normal;"| [[Chess problem]] composer and author, described as "America's greatest [[puzzlist]]" by [[Martin Gardner]].<ref>Loyd, Sam (1959). ''Mathematical Puzzles of Sam Loyd'' (selected and edited by [[Martin Gardner]]), Dover Publications Inc., p. xi, {{ISBN|0-486-20498-7}}</ref>
|-
| [[Henry Dudeney]] || Dudeney || 1857 || 1930 || English
|style="white-space:normal;"| [[Civil servant]] described as England's "greatest puzzlist".<ref>{{citation|contribution=Henry Ernest Dudeney: Britain's Greatest Puzzlist|first=Angela|last=Newing|title=The Lighter Side of Mathematics: Proceedings of the Eugène Strens Memorial Conference on Recreational Mathematics and Its History|year=1994|editor1-first=Richard K.|editor1-last=Guy|editor1-link=Richard K. Guy|editor2-first=Robert E.|editor2-last=Woodrow|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn= 9780883855164|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-4W_5ZISxpsC&pg=PA294|pages=294–301}}.</ref>
|-
| [[Yakov Perelman]] || Perelman || 1882 || 1942 || Russian
|style="white-space:normal;"| Author of many [[popular science]] and [[popular mathematics|mathematics]] books, including ''Mathematics Can Be Fun.''
|-
| [[D. R. Kaprekar]] || Kaprekar || 1905 || 1986 || Indian
|style="white-space:normal;"| Discovered several results in [[number theory]], described several [[Template:Classes of natural numbers|classes of natural numbers]] including the [[Kaprekar number|Kaprekar]], [[harshad number|harshad]] and [[self number|self]] numbers, and discovered the [[Kaprekar's constant]]
|-
| [[Martin Gardner]] || Gardner || 1914 || 2010 || American
|style="white-space:normal;"| [[Popular mathematics]] and [[Popular science|science]] writer; author of ''Mathematical Games'', a long-running ''[[Scientific American]]'' column.
|-
| [[Raymond Smullyan]] || Smullyan || 1919 || 2017 || American
|style="white-space:normal;"| Logician; author of many logic puzzle books including "[[To Mock a Mockingbird]]".
|-
| [[Joseph Madachy]] || Madachy || 1927 || 2014 || American
|style="white-space:normal;"| Long-time editor of ''[[Journal of Recreational Mathematics]]'', author of ''Mathematics on Vacation.''
|-
| [[Solomon W. Golomb]]{{nbsp|2}} || Golomb || 1932 || 2016 || American
|style="white-space:normal;"| Mathematician and engineer, best known as the inventor of [[polyominoes]].
|-
| [[John Horton Conway]]{{nbsp|2}} || Conway || 1937 || 2020 || English
|style="white-space:normal;"| Mathematician and inventor of [[Conway's Game of Life]], co-author of ''[[Winning Ways]]'', an analysis of many [[mathematical games]].
|-
| [[Noboyuki Yoshigahara]]{{nbsp|2}} || Yoshigahara || 1936 || 2004 || Japanese
|style="white-space:normal;"|  Japan's most celebrated inventor, collector, solver, and communicator of puzzles.
|-
|[[Lee Sallows]]
|Sallows
|1944
|
|English
|Invented [[Geomagic square|geomagic squares]], [[Golygon|golygons]], and [[Self-enumerating sentence|self-enumerating sentences]].
|-
|}