ABSTRACT
Mathematics Magic and Mystery, which I encountered a few years after
its 1956 publication. There were several exceedingly clever contributions
from Mel, including some of his groundbreaking work on geometric van-
ishes. I was quite taken with his trick entitled "Gargantua's Ten-Pile
Problem," which required a deck of 10 billion cards. Mel's suggestion as
to how such a pack could be most easily assembled: "Buy 200 million
decks of 52 cards each, then discard two cards from each deck."
