Science & Math Tricks in Magic & Conjuring: page 1

Amusing Experiments in Physics, Chemistry and Geometry

The title is a little bit misleading, because there are no real magic tricks in this book, at least not the kind that a magician would assume. It is essentially a book of 'kitchen' science experiments. Some of these experiments can of course be presented like a magic trick. But the majority of them are simply interesting or surprising science experiments which can be done at home with a little bit of preparation.

From the preface:

Practical physics and chemistry without apparatus.

A collection of simple science experiments that anybody can conduct in their own home. In part based on the column "physique sans appareils" (physics without apparatus) in La Nature. Translated by Henry Frith from the French.

Excerpt from the preface:

Translated from the French by Henry Frith. The French original from 1880 is considered the very first title in the genre of books of simple science experiments that anybody can conduct in their own home. But this book is much more than a collection of kitchen sink science experiments. It is an engineering and science primer that touches on many topics of physics and chemistry including organic chemistry, material science, heat, light, sound, gases, aeronautics, and a lot more.

Based on page numbering it appears to be a compilation of several books:

• Half Hours of Scientific Amusement
• Marvels of the Elements
• Marvels...

Providing the weekday for a given date has never been easier. Day For Any Date for the Million selects ideas from different methods to achieve a synthesis that renders a difficult process absolutely simple. The inclusion of a prop that can be accommodated on the back of a business card does away with the cumbersome and numerous steps that were usually necessary.

"The Day For Any Date is a classic effect that warrants the best methods available. Federico provides them with an innovative prop and clear instructions on how to succeed with accuracy, quickness and ease. The result is a comfort...

Barton-Wright, one of the first Europeans to study Japanese martial arts, explains eleven pseudo-strength tricks in words and photos. Forty years before this publication Lulu Hurst created a sensation demonstrating similar stunts as manifestations of 'unexplainable forces'.

The tricks explained in this article are:

1. How to Master a Man with Two Fingers
2. How to Hold a Chair in the Palms of your Hands, and to Defy Anyone to Pull it through your Hands
3. How to Lift from the Ground a Chair in which a Person is Seated
4. How to Lift a Chair with Four Men Packed upon it
5. How to Defy Anyone Standing in Front...

The date 1514 A.D. means something to you? It's possible to construct lightning-fast a magic square on the backside of a business card and hand it out as giveaway. This is by far the best ebook on magic squares for the mental entertainer. Melencolia I - Magic Squares for the Mental Entertainer becomes a modern classic. It is without a doubt an essential work in this field of mentalism on mostly unknown, smart and unforgettable methods for 4x4, 5x5 and 6x6 Magic Squares.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Part I - Dürer-type magic square
  1. Construction of the Dürer magic square

"I just got this today, it's great! Sometimes, the simple tricks are the best. I've already shown it to some people, and it really DOES get a big laugh. Thanks!" - Dave D.

This is an impressive prediction. It has fried the minds of lay people and fooled almost every magician or mentalist, I have shown this to. Many magician's say they can't fool their wives. I guarantee this is one effect she will be totally baffled by. This effect is so amazing, that you will fool yourself each time you do it wondering how such a thing is possible. Yet the effect is completely self-working with no skill or sleights.

EFFECT: Using a borrowed deck (if desired) the mentalist instructs a spectator to deal a poker hand consisting of a straight hand in a horizontal row. For example;...

With this work I wanted to celebrate the famous number tables, protagonists of the game "Guess your age". I thought that this game, considered the 'oldest mentalism effect', could be improved and that that weak magic effect could be transformed into something powerful, without increasing the difficulty of execution. By accentuating certain qualities of the principle that governs them, I developed the new cards, the evolved version of the number tables. Everyone knows the classic version of the game: a spectator chooses a number and indicates which and how many tables it is on, the mentalist...

Quodlibet literally means "what you like, or what you prefer" and is the theme that links the two publications that bear this name, the first dedicated to an evolution of the numerical tables and a development of the principle applied to a 52-card deck, and the latter Quodlibet 2, which proposes the Tarot version.

An upturned Tarot deck is placed on the table in full view; a spectator will be asked to choose only mentally any one of the 78 Arcana, of the major or minor series as he or she prefers, and to concentrate on it. The spectator will be handed a series of seven folders depicting...

"Quodlibet" means "what you like", to mean the free choice on the part of a spectator, which is the fundamental condition for a successful magic effect. The classic mentalism effect 'Guess the Age' has been explained in all its main aspects. In this treatise, the principle of the binary system and the method of using it in magic are comprehensively examined, and it is explained how to construct classic number tables and their structure. You will be able to construct the new number tables according to a new mathematical structure, which allows you to guess the number thought of by looking at...

"I've been doing magic 40 years, and this may be one of my five favorite tricks. Excellent thinking. Hard to top." - Clyde Hayre, US.

A spectator is asked to throw three fair dice (this is an absolute fair throw or even just a mental throw - no force here). From the number fairly thrown you construct a perfect magic square. For a kicker, the cards are put together and the face of a King of Hearts appears.

There is no palming of cards or exchanging of decks or anything like it. You work with 16 cards and 16 cards only without any sleight-of-hand.

You get 16 specially printed cards...

"I've been doing magic 40 years, and this may be one of my five favorite tricks. Excellent thinking. Hard to top." - Clyde Hayre, US.

LOVE IT! I've been looking for a trick to help promote my business and this is perfect as I trade under the name "That's Magic" - Barry Harvey, UK.

You get 16...

I rarely get to work on my own creations these days. 911 Summing is one of those rare occasions. It is an effect and method I have created more than 20 years ago. Both the effect and the method are to the best of my knowledge completely new and have never been published before.

This is a math effect I have had a lot of fun with. It can even be performed as puzzle challenge rather than a magic effect. I have performed this for people twice as smart as myself - engineers, scientists, researchers, professors - you name it. Not once has anybody figured out how it is done, even though, the principle...

With contributions by Werner Miller, Max Maven and Shigeo Futagawa.

The day was March 6th 2011 when Werner Miller sent me his Da Capo 3 and Da Capo 4 ebooks. Whenever I receive something from Werner I make time to read it. He has a knack to incorporate new twists and takes, or entirely new principles which stimulate my own grey cells.

Browsing Da Capo 3 I stumbled on an unusual effect which Werner titled "Pointing the Way". It was first published in 2001 in Club 71. This effect consisted of two parts. One was a printing effect where blank cards were shown, which later had arrows printed on them. This part of the effect was nothing special, the usual...

A spectator populates a row of a 4x4 square with any four numbers. You fill out the remaining 12 squares in seconds to construct a magic square. Does not require any math.

This has become my favorite impromptu magic square effect, because it is easier than a classic magic square - there is literally no math, unless you consider counting up or down by one math - and it produces a stronger effect with spectators. Thus a win-win all around.

The effect: Take any piece of paper, for example the backside of a restaurant receipt, and draw an empty 4x4 square. Then ask a spectator to fill in any...

Bruce Carlley is going to show you a number of games that the magician or gambler plays against a spectator one on one. The spectator gets a free choice of the objects that are used in the gambling game. (Some games use cards, dice, pieces of paper, spinners, etc.) For example, say the spectator has a choice of four dice. Spectator picks one die and the magician picks one die. Each rolls their die, and the high number wins. Whoever wins a best of 12 game match wins the game. Unfortunately for the spectator, the magician will almost always win the match. The probability will ALWAYS be in the...

Six poker chips, bearing the numbers 0 to ten are examined and mixed by a spectator. The spectator lays them on a table with no interference from the mentalist. While the performer's back is turned, the spectator turns over some chips. Three more are turned over and covered with a playing card, business card, or beer coaster. The performer turns around and, with no false moves or skulduggery, announces the total of the chips beneath the cards. It's that clean. And, surprisingly, it can be instantly repeated, with a different result.

Just the thing for parties, get-togethers, and bars, while...

An entertaining monte effect where the spectator, not the performer, switches the positions of the cards (which may be borrowed).

Here's another mental stunner by Bob Hummer and it's one of the most baffling he's ever released. Briefly, it can be done with any deck, and only three cards are used - any three cards. The performer does not switch the cards around, as in the regular monte. It's the spectator who mixes the position of the cards - while the performer's back is turned. After the cards are mixed as much as desired, the spectator peeks at one card, remembers it, and then makes a...

A new method to quickly and secretly arrange cards from a small pack all the way to a full deck. No math needed unless you want to understand why it works.

Within magic, no mind approaches Bob Farmer's. Outside magic, Machiavelli came close. The evidence is presented in "The Bammo Tarodiction Toolbox." - Stephen Minch

Bob Farmer's Bammo Tarodiction Toolbox is both a great trick and a genuinely new method for secretly arranging cards quickly, accurately, and right in front of the spectators' noses. - Matthew Field

About what you'd expect from the guy who invented that stupid little hand trick. -...

A wonderfully illustrated collection of 100 interesting and easy-to-replicate science experiments, tricks, puzzles, and the like.

Excerpt from the preface:

Translated and edited from the French Science Amusante by Professor Hoffmann.

• PREFACE
• A Plate Balanced on a Needle
• To Balance a Pencil on its Point
• To...

The best way of learning new things is doing them. Magical Experiments or Science in Play is a fascinating collection of kitchen table top experiments with every day household goods. Many of which have a 'magical' twist to them, in the sense that it is for the unfamiliar observer not quite clear how these tricks are performed, or what the physical mechanisms behind them are. More than 150 experiments are described with gorgeous lithographs. This book was originally written in French and later translated to English. This in itself is a proof of quality, otherwise the translation would not have...

Containing complete instructions for performing over sixty ingenious mechanical tricks.

• The Pile of Draughtsmen
• The Decanter, Card, and Coin
• A Clever Blow
• The Obedient Coin
• To Cut a String With Your Hands
• The Rebound
• A Fiery Catapult
• To Make an Exact Balance
• The Recomposition of Light
• The Mysterious Apple
• Economical Letter-Scales
• Tracing a Spiral
• The Inclined Plane
• To Cut a Bottle With a String
• Equilibrium of a Knife in Mid-Air
• A Trick With Four Matches
• The Distance of an Inaccessable Point
• Practical Tracing of a Meridian Line
• To Measure the Height of a Mountain
• To Take...

Containing over one hundred highly amusing and instructive tricks with chemicals.

• Chemical Affinity
• Sympathetic Inks
• Alum Baskets
• Easy Crystallizations
• To Make a piece of Charcoal appear as though it were Coated with Gold
• To Give a Piece of Charcoal a Rich Coat of Silver
• Combustion
• Chemistry of The Air
• Amateur Air Pump
• Asphyxia
• Balloon in Vacuum
• Boiling Cold Water
• A Sucking Tube
• Cupping
• The Barometer
• A Novel Barometer
• Compressed Air
• Noiseless Bell
• The Bursting Bladder
• Weight of the Air
• Spoons which will Melt in Hot Water
• Effect of Compression
• To Cover Iron with Copper ...