Understanding and Using Gilbreath Principle
by Michael Daniels

Gilbreath Principle is always worth reading if you can find a copy of mental card miracles by Nick Trost a Micky Hades Publication find within a routine called Dr Rhine outdone where Gilbreath principle is used. Norman Gilbreath's Principle was first mentioned in the July issue of the Linking Ring 1958. I was born on August the 6th the following year. (Nothing to do with the principle but I do love Maths and the odd birthday card would be truly amazing from any Magician reading this L.O.L ) As to this eBook I would highly recommend for contents and value for money and not to be missed. I would recommend researching all you can find for this principle as I feel it should not be missed by the Magical performer.

So you don't know what the Gilbreath Principle (or Gilbreath Permutation) is, and Perci Diakonis and Ron Graham's incredibly detailed book Mathematical Magic scares the hell out of you because you weren't good at math in school. Never fear. For the price of a coffee (or cheap domestic beer) and I would say about half an hour of your time, you will be blown away. It boils down to this: There are mathematical oddities in the world that seem completely impossible (Benford's Law concerning the relative frequencies of the first digit in data sets comes to mind. It applies to election votes, lengths of rivers, street addresses, and all kinds of crazy things.) Anyway, the Gilbreath Principle basically says that randomly mixing (in a certain way) two ordered data sets will give you a different data set, but that data set will also be ordered. In other words, mix two halves of a deck that alternates red and black suits, and you'll get a deck that has groups that... Well, you are just going have to read this ebook. Author Daniel does a super job of making you understand this without any math notation. Follow along, and you will be convinced. And then he gives you two killer routines. Did I mention that this is $4? Cardicians and mentalists will find a lot to love here if you've never used this principle before. This is one of these principles that apart from mathematicians and magicians, very few people know because it's counterintuitive: Randomly mixing a nicely ordered deck will give you a randomly ordered deck, right? Nope. Laypeople will have no idea how you predict/know things about a fairly riffle shuffled deck. It seems impossible. But it isn't. It's easy to work miracles once you know this, one of the greatest weird math principles of all time. And there are no formulas, difficult counting, or memory work involved. Highly recommended.