Dr Matrix

Irving Joshua Matrix — born (Japan, 1908) as Irving Joshua Bush and commonly known as Dr. (I. J.) Matrix — was a fictitious polymath scientist, scholar, cowboy, 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 Scientific American columnist Martin Gardner (1914–2010) who introduced him in his "Mathematical Games" column in January 1960. The mythical doctor appeared frequently thereafter and the relevant columns were eventually collected into a book. The intent was partly to provide colorful context to mathematical puzzles and curiosities, partly to spoof various pseudo-scientific theories, and always to provide a humorous introduction to the serious topic at hand.

Matrix was born in Japan, the eldest of seven children of the Reverend William Miller Bush, a Seventh-day Adventist missionary. He resided in Japan until the end of World War II, where he learned the secrets of the conjuring art and worked as assistant to the famous Japanese magician Tenkai.

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