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⇱ Just like that | Nature Physics


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Magical Mathematics: The Mathematical Ideas that Animate Great Magic Tricks

  • Persi Diaconis &
  • Ron Graham
PRINCETON UNIV. PRESS: 2012. 258 pp. £20.95/$29.95

Imagine the scene. You are standing in front of an audience and hand a deck of playing cards to a randomly selected volunteer. Next, you ask the volunteer to cut the cards, remove the top five cards and hand each of the cards to five other members of the audience. You then announce that you are going to try a spot of mind reading. The five people are asked to look at their cards and stand up if they are holding a red card. You immediately name each of their cards and then, as a finale, also name the black cards being held by the remaining volunteers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Richard Wiseman is in the School of Psychology, University of Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, UK,

    Richard Wiseman

Authors
  1. Richard Wiseman

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Correspondence to Richard Wiseman.

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Wiseman, R. Just like that. Nature Phys 8, 104–105 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2225

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2225

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