Hello all,

As I said on my first post on "our new arrival" section...

My name is Michelangelo, I am from Italy and I work in a Sciece center as sciece-explainer.
I love magic but as you could read magic is not my full time job.... Or may it be?

Recently I developed ah activity for schools and also for generic public, in which I try to put together maths and magic, mainly menthalism.
The original idea Was that of doing very simple tricks, math based, and then tho explain the math on which they relay.
Now the "show" has a bit evolved: I do slightly less simple tricks which somehow involves matfh and I explain the math without giving off too much about the trick.
My tricks by the way are not as strong as those you expect in a magic show; so I decide to join the magic Café... may be I can find here some advises to improve further more my show and to make it shine!

Now a brief description of what I do in my activity, which is 1 hour long.

1) [b] Martin Gardner magic square []
I start by selecting two people from the audience and making them chose a table of numbers (I have 5 of them) with which they're going to play. Then they chose 3+1 numbers in that 4x4 table they add them and they both reach the same total. I then explain how to obtain magic squares of this thyme.

2) [b] Misteries of nine []
I select a member of the audience, write down a prediction about his number, looking closely at him, put the prediction in an envelope and give the envelope to someone else. Then I ask the volounter to write down a 3 digit numbers with all different digits. I never look at the board. Then I ask to reverse the number, I have a switch bag so I "extract" a math operation between those numbers, then reversing again the numbers and one last operation which can be "freely" chosen by the spectator. And then boom my prediction matches with the total on the board. I do not explain this anymore...

3) [b] Lie to me []
I select a member of the audience, he then choose one out seven object that I will find. I ask the volunteer to be honest in 3 simple questions, then he can lie to me or not. In those three question I show images of subsets of the object, at the end I am able to know his choice (binary sistem)

4) [b] Magic Ring []
I select a member of the audience which starts from a point in a magic ring. I ask him to make a chosen number of steps counterclockwise. Then the same number clockwise, then I put off some of the 12 pieces of the ring. Then I ask for 4 steps either clock or counterclockwise. Then I know where he's pointing. I explain why that works.

5) [b] Chair test []
I select three members of the audience. I have three chairs and three boxes: red, blue, green. Each one chooses box and sit and they match my prediction. Here I explain just how to calculate the possible outcomes. I point out that with 3 chairs and 3 boxes, despite all choosing and switching there are only 6 possible outcomes. Then I tell that with a little of practice I've found the way to make people do what I want, at least in choosing boxes and sits! (Actually there is something else going on, but you know it)

6) [b] magic square 2 []
I end with another magic square, a realtà one. I tell a story of how hearing by chance a particular piece of music I discovered I could do super fast calcoulus, I say that I searched for that song for a long time until finally 6 years ago I could find it and I could see that it had the same effect on me. To show that I state that I will produce a magic square 4x4 adding to a number chosen by the audience... then I go in the magic square routine as learned from Luke Jeramy in his Magic Square effect.


The effect I like most are the last two: the chair test because I can explain something interesting in math while not giving away the real secret. The last is just awesome even if I have nothing to explain, but it's ok it's the big final.


So here I am for suggestions, ideas, contributions... I just hope I was not to long and that everything is easily comprensibile!

Thank you all

Michelangelo

Hi Michelangelo,

Welcome to the Magic Café. I am also a great fan of magic with math and use it every chance I get. Unfortunately, no matter how simple I try to make the effects, a lot of people are intimidated by math and get especially flustered when participating in public. It's very easy for the effect to go wrong without a lot of coaching by the magician. However in most cases they are well worth doing.

I do like your choice of effects. I would like to suggest two of my favorites (although I have many more). One is really baffling and the other can be impressive.

In order to not give the methods away in a public forum. I will describe the effects and you should be able to find the methods on the internet with some meaningful searches. By the way, there are many excellent books on this topic and a large variety of effects. One of my favorites is Mathematical Wizardry by Harry Lorayne. The eBook website Lybrary.com also has many offerings at very reasonable prices.

The first effect is based on the Fibonacci number. Two participants each select any number (without you being aware of them). After a series of additions they reach a certain point and inform you of the number at that point. As they continue adding, you immediately write down a number which will turn out to be the total of the numbers they are calculating. The surprise is that you have predicted the correct total before they have even finished creating the numbers.

The second effect is a 10 X 10 grid of numbers 1 to 100 in sequence. The participant circles any set of numbers in a 5 X 5 grid within the 10 X 10 grid. Within seconds you are able to tell them the total of the all of the numbers they have circled within their grid.

Hope this helps and good luck with your math magic show.

John

Hi,

Your program sounds terrific!

In case you haven't seen them, here are some resources which you might find useful:

http://www.cs4fn.org/magia/downloads/lam......tica.pdf

http://www.cs4fn.org/magic/

http://www.cs4fn.org/magic/magicdownload.php

http://www.mathematicalmagic.com/index.html

Je crée des effets nouveaux sur les carrés magiques.
Ces créations sont uniquement réservées à des magiciens professionnels.

http://bouticpp.users.micso.fr/

Désolé c'est en Français.