An Amazing Magical Illusion that You Can Make Yourself

The effect: 5 cardboard shapes seem to tessellate perfectly and fit snugly within a rectangular border. You then add a 6^th shape and amazingly, this too fits within the rectangular border. Finally, you add a 7^th shape and this too fits within the rectangular border.

The method: You are required to cut out a set of 7 shapes as well as a border. These shapes should be numbered. The blueprint including measurements appears below. Using cardboard is more effective than paper.

By rearranging the shapes in certain orientations, 5 shapes, 6 shapes and finally 7 shapes appear to fit snugly within the border. The audience is left perplexed where this seemingly large amount of space has materialised from.

5 shapes fit in this orientation

6 shapes fit in this orientation

Finally, show the audience all 7 shapes fitting in this orientation.

Thanks to Funny Ideas on YouTube for the images.

A Magic Square Magic Trick

The effect: The spectator is merely thinking of a number between 22 and 99. You draw a 4×4 magic square and show it to the spectator. The spectator is unimpressed. You reveal to the spectator that the sum of the numbers in row 1 is their secret number. In fact, the sum of the numbers in row 2 is their number, same with row 3 and 4. The same for each column, the same for the diagonals, indeed there are 28 unique combinations on your magic square that reveal their secret number.

The method- The secret Number: There are several ways to present this effect. One method involves asking the spectator to name any number between 22 and 99. You then draw the magic square and appear like a maths whiz. There exist other methods to present the effect in which the spectator doesn’t name a number and from their perspective, they are thinking of a freely selected number that you are supposedly not aware of however gimmicks are normally required for this ends. Another method involves forcing a number on the spectator. This can be achieved by forcing the top two cards from a deck of cards onto the spectator eg using a riffle force or the very simple cross-cut force that requires no skill and can be learnt here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tkte5Ubo9yc.

The method- The magic square: Regardless of what number the spectator chooses between 22 and 99, there will be 12 of the 16 squares in the magic square that will be the same every time. The remaining 4 squares will depend on the number the spectator has chosen. Fortunately, there is an easy method to remember the numbering of the squares.

1.Firstly, write out the multiples of 18. This covers: 18, 36, 54, 72. Make sure only one digit appears in each square and the numbers are vertical. The location of these digits appears below.

2. Write out the numbers 9, 10, 11, 12. The number 9 appears in the bottom right corner and the numbers increase by 1 along the zig-zag. See the below image.

3. There will be 4 spaces remaining. You must now fill in square ‘A’. A is the spectators number minus 21. Move anti-clockwise around the blank squares and add 1 each time. See the below image.

An example of a completed magic square appears below. This magic square was drawn with the number 46 being chosen as the spectator’s number.

Trick Your Friends Into Thinking They Have ESP

The trick:

Click on the following link (http://www.barryandstuart.com/esp/) for the interactive video to show your friends. The video will ask your friend to pick one of the 5 ESP test cards: the circle, the cross, the wavy lines, the square or the star. Your friend will pick the same card that is later announced in the video. This will occur two more times. The odds of your friend picking the correct card three times in a row is less than 1% yet they inevitably will.

The secret:
After your friend says aloud the name of the ESP symbol they are thinking of, the video will be paused and require playing. You will click on a specific segment of the rectangular play icon that appears in the centre of the video screen. The rectangular play icon is divided into 5 parts: top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right and centre. What part of the icon you click determines what ESP symbol is displayed in the subsequent section of the video

Top left= circle

Top right= cross

Bottom left= wavy lines

Bottom right= square

Centre= star

 

There is an easy method to remember these correlations. The ESP symbols are composed of

1 line: circle

2 lines: cross

3 lines: wavy lines

4 lines: square

5 (points): star

 

This means:

Top left= 1

Top right= 2

Bottom left= 3

Bottom right= 4

Centre= 5

The test website is here:

http://www.barryandstuart.com/esp/

A video explaining the test and what I have explained above is here: http://www.barryandstuart.com/esp-test/

A Magic Trick to Predict Every Move of a Noughts and Crosses Game

This magic trick involves playing another person in noughts and crosses, AKA tic-tac-toe. After the game is finished, you simply turn over a prediction piece of paper that has been sitting in view and the prediction piece of paper matches the actual game moves exactly!

Write the above finished game position on a piece of paper and turn the paper over. Place a small dot on the back of the paper indicating the edge of the page closest to where the top ‘OXO’ row is. This piece of paper is now ready and is your prediction paper. You can fold it up and give it to your opponent to hold or simply place it face down.

The next step is to take out a fresh piece of paper and play noughts and crosses with your opponent. Your objective isn’t to win but to play a certain series of moves.

You start and must be X. You place your X in the centre.

The opponent will then move as O.

If your opponent moves in a corner, then you place X one space over clockwise    

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If your opponent moves at an edge position, then you place X one space over anti-clockwise.

After every move of the opponent, you follow these rules. You can remember it as corner and clockwise begin with ‘c’ so if your opponent moves in a corner then you move clockwise. If they move onto an edge then you move anti-clockwise.

The game will finish in a draw and you must work out where on your finished game the OXO top row is. When you flip over your prediction (that has been marked indicating where the OXO row is) make sure they match in orientation.

This is a great impromptu trick that just requires a pen and paper. All you need to remember is the initial prediction setup: OXO, OXX, XOX, an opponent move in the corner=clockwise move for you, opponent edge move=anti-clockwise move for you. Also remember that you are X and start in the centre.

An Amazing Magic Trick That Requires No Skill

You borrow a friend’s iphone and open up their calculator app. You ask them to type in their year of birth and hit multiply, you ask them to type a number between 1 and 100 and hit multiply, you ask them to type the number of chocolates they’ve eaten in their life and hit multiply and finally you ask them to type a random number between 300 and 400 and hit equals. A 10 digit random answer appears on their phone. You ask your friend to reach into their pocket and they find a folded up piece of paper. They unfold it and the number that has been in their pocket the entire time matches exactly the answer to these seemingly random numbers multiplied together. There’s more! You ask them to phone the random number and your phone begins to ring: it’s your phone number!

I have spent a small fortune on magic tricks over the years but this free trick requires no skill, props or money (other than the presence of a certain type of phone or calculator).

The method: This trick relies on a mathematical principle that numbers multiplied by 0 equal 0; in essence it’s a maths trick. The trick works on iphones and certain calculators. Firstly, open the iphone calculator app. Type your phone number into the calculator and multiply it by 1 (hit x and 1 on the keypad). Now, add 0 and multiply (hit + then 0 then x). The final step is to rotate the phone 90 degrees so it turns to landscape mode (this should open up more options on the calculator. In landscape mode, hit open bracket (this symbols “(” should appear as the first symbol of the top row). Rotate the phone back to its normal portrait mode and the trick is ready. This entire trick relies on what is known as the toxic force.

In summary,

Type in your phone number

x 1

+ 0

x

Rotate the phone 90 degrees and press (

Rotate the phone back to portrait mode.

The above preparation can be done before the trick begins or quickly on a friend’s borrowed phone under the guise of trying to find the calculator app. Before the trick begins, you also need to hide your phone number somewhere in the room away from where you are sitting.

Ask your friend to type random numbers into the phone and hit multiply after each number. Some ideas of questions to generate these numbers appear at the top of this article. After several numbers, ask your friend to hit equals and your phone number will appear on their phone as the answer! There are several variants to this trick but I find that it’s great impromptu magic that generates amazed reactions.

 

 

 

The 5 Card Trick Puzzle

I shuffled a deck of cards and picked out 5 random cards. I then gave these cards to Adam. Adam gave one card back to me and told me this was the card that he was “coding.” Adam then rearranged the order of the remaining 4 cards and gave them to Belinda. After looking at the order of the 4 cards, Belinda correctly identified the card I was holding. How did Adam and Belinda do this trick? There were no word clues or trick cards used- the trick was entirely involving the ordering of the cards.

Scroll down for a clue and further down for the answer.

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Clue: This is a logic puzzle. When you hand someone 5 cards, at least two of the cards will have the same suit. Is there a way to order the final 3 cards such that they indicate a number from 1-6?

Scroll down for the answer.

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Answer: If someone is given 5 cards, two of the cards at least will always share the same suit. The higher value of these suit sharing cards will be the card designated as the ‘coding card’. This card is handed to the spectator. There are 4 cards left to arrange into an order. One of these remaining 4 cards will share a suit with the coding card. This suit sharing card will be placed in position number 1. There are now 3 cards left to order. When you have 3 cards, you can place them in an order depending on their value. For instance, if we have a 5, jack and 9, we can place them in low, middle, high order (LMH) which would be 5, 9 and jack (If two cards have the same number eg both 7s we rank them according to the suit’s alphabetical order: Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades.) We could also place them in 5 other permutations, in total 6 possible combinations as listed below:

LMH=1 (5,9,J)

LHM=2 (5,J,9)

MLH=3 (9,5,J)

MHL=4 (9,J,5)

HLM=5 (J,5,9)

HML=6 (J,9,5)

The order we put these cards in depends on how much higher the original “coding card” is than the suit card in position 1. If we have a coding card of value 10 and a suit card of value 7 then we do 10-7=3 and therefore order the 3 remaining cards as number 3 in the above table ie middle, low high.

I will now go through an actual example to hopefully make things clearer. I am given the random cards: 3C, 5C, 7S, JD, 8H.

I notice there are two clubs (3C and 5C) and therefore deem the higher of the two (5C) to be the coding card and I give this to the spectator. I place the 3C in position number 1 so the person doing the uncoding knows the suit of the coded card.

I now have 7S, 8H and JD left. The card in position number 1 has a value of 3 which is two less than the coding card’s value of 5. I therefore need to code 5-3=2. From the above table, 2 is associated with “low, high middle” therefore I order the 7S, 8H and JD as the lowest card first: 7S then the highest:JD then the middle 8H.

I have finished the positioning of the cards:

3C

7S

JD

8H

I give them to the uncoding person.

The uncoding person knows the coded suit immediately is a club as position 1 is clubs. The coding person notices the 7,J,8 remaining cards are ordered low, high and middle and that is associated with 2 hence they add two the position 1 card of 3 and this equals 5. The card is then identified as the 5 of clubs.

I have explained this whole process in a rather convoluted manner and it’s not that complicated in reality. This trick can be performed under the guise of ‘magic’ if you have someone else that also knows the trick and can perform it with you.

 

Amaze your Friends with this Number Trick

You ask your friend to think of any number between 1 and 63. You then hand them 6 cut-out pieces of paper with various numbers on them. They hand back to you the cards with their number on it. Within 3 seconds, you tell them what their number is. This trick is based on binary numbers and can be printed off here: http://www.cmas.nz/site/resources/magic-tricks/

After printing the page off, cut out the 6 rectangles. To perform this trick, your friend hands the cards to you that have their number on them. All you have to do is to add together the top left number appearing on all of the cards your friend has handed to you. The answer off the added numbers is the number your friend has been thinking of.

I have come up with a variant of this trick in which you discreetly mark the back of the cards before the trick begins. On the back of the card with 1 in the top left corner, place a dot. On the back of the 2 card, place 2 dots, on the back of the 4 card place 4 dots, on the back of the 8 card place a short line, on the back of the 16 card place 2 lines and on the back of the 32 card place 4 lines. In this version of the trick, get your friend to put the cards with their number on them in a line face-down in front of you. You just add up the dots and lines (each line is worth 8) that are on the back of the cards and tell them the answer, with it matching their thought of number. This version is more impressive as you are not even looking at the numbers on the card hence can make out you are reading their mind.

I have come up with another version of this trick using the same cards. You tell your friend that you have amazing speed reading ability. They hand you any combination of the cards and you immediately tell them which number appears on only those cards. Once again, all you have to do is add up the top left corner number of the cards handed to you.