Hi,
I am considering starting my competition act with a magic square...But maybe this is not a good idea, as most of the magic square methods are generally fairly well known among magicians.

Are there any methods which will baffle magicians, a method which is little known?

Of course another way to impress magicians with a magic square is to use a very large square. An odd number is easy enough, but using even numbers, I don't know any methods.

Is there a description of a 6X6 magic square any where?

Looking at the post "The magic square and the grocery store" this is an interesting take on the magic square which I think would work very well in front of magicians, as it is less known than just asking for the end number of each row:

Click Here!

Maybe just presenting the routine in a different way...Derren Brown's Magic square has been mentioned before in this forum, and personally I think it was the best dressing of a magic square I had seen. The method was compeletly hidden, as you didn't know it was going to be a magic square until the last minute.

Any "Magic Square Magician Fooler" (MSFS's) would be greatly appreciated!
Owen

Hi Owen,

6 x 6 magic squares do exist. An example of such is:

35, 1, 6, 26, 19, 24
3, 32, 7, 21, 23, 25
31, 9, 2, 22, 27, 20
8, 28, 33, 17, 10, 15
30, 5, 34, 12, 14, 16
4, 36, 29, 13, 18, 11

The book Math E Magic by Royal Vale Heath contains some information on 6 x 6 and other magic squares.

I believe (although I've not read it myself) that a more detailed coverage of these apppears in 'Greater Magic' by John Northern Hilliard.

Best wishes,

Brian.

Do these references include 6X6 squares which can be made from a spectators chosen number? I know these excist as Mark Salem oppens his show with it! I just don't know where the description is...
Thanks
Owen

Magic squares follow a basic principal. an example of this is shown using a 17 x 17 magic square

http://mathforum.org/alejandre/magic.squ......ath.html


Mentalism Incorporated by Chuck Hickock has a good routine with an easy-to-do magic square.

An 'outstanding' full routine for bizzarrists; using a magic square was created by Robert E, Neale.

It was titled " The Nun Who Saw Strangely. It is different from the norm, entertaining and strong.
Perhaps one day, he will release it in a book. Another individual who has advanced magic squares is Lee Woodside. Amazing takes on the principle still do exist.

A few ideas:

1) You can do the square extremely quickly, obviously faster than it could normally be done, even using standard formulas.

2) You can do the square using much larger numbers (e.g., the participant's year of birth) than is typically seen in such presentations.

3) You can do the square using numbers chosen by four different participants, placed in a way to maximize difficulty.

4) You can do a square based on a number you could not possibly know until after the square has been drawn.

Methods: For (1) and (2), see my Mindsights. For (3), see Chuck Hickok's Diagonal Magic Square (this is not the same as the simple square in his book). For (4), see any good mentalism text.

... Doug

You may try the MathMagic from http://www.322.info/b-magic.
You will get a few options to use it for small numbers as well for large numbers.
You may combine it with Total dstiny by Meyir Yedid.

Good luck

Thanks for all the suggestions. I shall certainly check out atleast some of the suggested sources
Owen

Here's a great, and very thorough article on different approaches to magic squares.

Harry Lorayne's routine as described in Reputation Makers. Absolute killer.

I had a special request to do some kind of mathematical effect for a company party last week. I had purchased Chuck Hickok's Diagonal Square routine when he lectured in Denver a couple months ago... so I hauled it out any prepared myself for two weeks of serious cramming and practice. What a delight to discover that this very impressive method of having spectators call out FOUR random numbers... then you whip, and I mean whip through the rest of the square... hand them the specially printed grids, with some fascinating ad copy on the bottom... and only then point out some interesting number combinations. Let them do the adding... knocked the accoutant out! This will be a permanent carry-around item for me. I also do the Einstein's Demise version with the cards... and sometimes throw in a Sight Unseen Wallet to get the secret number for the total in that version... this combination works great. Audience member picks one number, secretly... and you build a magic square... that adds to that number. Repeat, but with four random numbers... great fun.
Omnibozo

There is general methods to construct magic squares of any dimension. Maybe the most difficult is the square of 4k+2 rows and columns. An interesting method is given by the mathematician and magician John Conway. It is called the LUX method.

I recommend to read the book "Winning ways to your mathematical plays".

Bye,

(Pedro)

Where can I find Chuck Hikok's Diagonal Square material?> What book?

[quote]On May 20, 2004, owen.daniel wrote:


Maybe just presenting the routine in a different way...Derren Brown's Magic square has been mentioned before in this forum, and personally I think it was the best dressing of a magic square I had seen. The method was compeletly hidden, as you didn't know it was going to be a magic square until the last minute.

Could you help me with the name of the show where in Derren Brown performed the magic square as his encore? I'm really interested to check it out. Thanks!

I would love to see Derren's presentation too, anyone ?