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Miraculous Numbers
by Peter Wilker

$12

(1 review, 3 customer ratings) ★★★

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Miraculous Numbers by Peter Wilker

A university professor of mathematics takes on tricks based on math.

From the preface:

As mathematics is (or was) my profession and magic my hobby, I was always interested in tricks that combined both, notably tricks with pure numbers. ... Unfortunately, I soon noticed that in most of the so-called mathemagical tricks there was very little mathematics and even less magic! What people use to call "mathematics" are mostly extremely simple arithmetical facts, and if you plodded through the tricks with numbers they proved to be excessively boring.

I do not know if I have succeeded to get around this deplorable state of affairs with the six or more tricks I offer in these Lecture Notes. They all depend on mathematical facts that are not altogether trivial and they lend themselves to good presentation which is of course essential for any magical idea. They all use simple props which (with the exception of the padlock in Chapter 2) can be made up without any difficulty.

  • Preface
  • Chapter 1 Ad Infinitum
  • Chapter 2 One Six Six Five
  • Chapter 3 Lightning Strikes Thrice
  • Chapter 4 Fibonacci
  • Chapter 5 On The Back Of Your Mind
  • Chapter 6 Friendly Numbers
  • Chapter 7 Betting With Prime Numbers
1st edition 1993, 28 pages; PDF 37 pages.
word count: 12591 which is equivalent to 50 standard pages of text


Reviewed by Michael Lyth
★★★★★   Date Added: Thursday 04 March, 2021

I have an original booklet still in its signed envelope by Peter Wilker 1994. So just reread it after digging it out of my collection of Magic and related books. I purchased mine probably after reading an Abracadabra Issue. It was good to once again read. So many good card effects work well based on mathematical methods. My interest as a youth was inspired by a copy of 1953 MATHeMAGIC by Bearnard M. L. Ernest, with an effect that I well used after making ''The Magic Block'' which was in the 1932 issue of Ripleys Believe it or not. Back to the notes chapter one starts with an effect devised by David Berglas called AD INFINITUM sourced from an early addition of Pabular Magazine which can be performed close up or stage.