Magic tricks info

Jonathan Goodwin (born February 20 1980) is a British TV escapologist, and brother of journalist and TV presenter Jane Harvey. He first appeared on Channel 4 TV programme Dirty Tricks and has subsequently appeared in TV specials The Seven Stupidest Things to Escape From, and Deathwish Live.
His signature is “lo-fi” escapes where he is apparently helped by his dad.

Goodwin caused a national outcry when his stunt, Cheating the Gallows, went wrong live on national television and he was hanged. Luckily he survived, suffering only minor rope burns.

Jonathan now appears on Channel 4’s Balls of Steel perfoming similar acts to what he did in Dirty Tricks

External links

• Goodwin’s website
• archive of Monkey Magic website
• Dirty Tricks website

Guy Hollingworth is an English conjuror known for his skillful card magic and elegant performing style. He created a sensation in the magic community with his trick The Reformation, in which a signed playing card is torn into four pieces and then visibly restored one piece at a time. He is well known for his acclaimed book, Drawing Room Deceptions. Some of his card magic is also featured in his videos The London Collection and Routines.

Publications

• FISM Lecture Notes (limited edition)
• Drawing Room Deceptions
• Quartet: A card and ten routines therewith
• Waiting for Inspiration Lecture Notes

Videos

• The Reformation (limited edition)
• The London Collection
• Routines

Marketed tricks

• Quartet - a playing card, included with a booklet of 10 routines or separately in packs of 3
• Once Upon a Time - a small fairy tale book featuring three magical routines suitable for children

Television appearances

• The World’s Greatest Magic III (USA)
• Heroes of Magic (UK)
• Illusoes with Luis de Matos (Portugal)
• Britain’s Worst Cheats (UK)
• Fifty Greatest Magic Tricks (UK)
• The Five Greatest Magicians in the World (Japan)

External links

• Guy Hollingworth’s official website

Magic Island refers to various geographical locations in the United States.

• Magic Island (Hawaii), peninsula and neighborhood in Honolulu, Hawaii
• Magic Island (West Virginia), an island in the Kanawha River

Other:

• Magic Island was also the name of an old-time radio program.

Manual may mean:

• Instructions
  • Instruction manual (computer and video games)
  • Online help
  • Unix manual - known as “man pages”
  • User guide or owner’s manual.
• Manual (music) - a keyboard, as for an organ
• Manual (band)
• Bike Tricks - (a manual is a special kind of wheelie)
• Freestyle skateboarding tricks - (balancing on two wheels)
• Manual transmission
• Done by hand, or not using machinery or electronics to fulfil a function

• And see the name Manuel.

The magic constant or magic sum of a magic square is the sum of numbers in any row, column, and diagonal of the magic square. For example, the magic square shown below has a magic constant of 15.

The term magic constant or magic sum is similarly applied to other “magic” figures such as magic stars and magic cubes.

Normal magic squares

If a magic square of order n is normal (i.e., it contains the numbers 1 to n²), then the magic constant depends only on n; its value is

<math>M_2(n) = \frac{n(n^2+1)}{2}</math>.

This formula is a consequence of the formula for the sum of the first n integers

<math>1 + 2 + … + k = \frac{k(k+1)}{2}</math>

applied to the case k = n², yielding n²(n²+1)/2, which is then divided by n because there are n rows, all of which sum to the same value.

The magic constants of normal magic squares of order n = 3, 4, 5, … are (sequence A006003 in OEIS):

15, 34, 65, 111, 175, 260, 369, 505, 671, 870

The numbers in any row, column, or diagonal of a normal magic square form a magic series.

External links

• 260 as magic constant for 8-queens problem and 8×8 magic square

a

The Detachable Thumb (unknown originator) is a very simple close-up illusion.

Effect

The performer appears to remove the end of his own thumb; moving it back and forth along his hand or lifting it up.

Method

There is no particular secret to this illusion: the performer simply holds out one hand sideways with the palm out and the tip of the thumb folded down behind the hand. Then he places his other thumb bent so that the tip appears to be connected to the folded-down thumb with the forefinger bent to cover the joint.

Credits

There is no known originator of this trick, and it is likely to be among the oldest tricks in the world.

Known variations

• Meir Yedid (USA) has created “Finger Fantasies”, a multitude of variations in which his fingers disappear and reappear in odd ways.

The Four Burglars is a magic effect in which the magician shows the four Jacks from a deck of cards, calling them burglars, and tells a story about them entering a house in different ways (the front door, a window, another window, and the back door) as he places one of the Jacks on the bottom of the deck, one about two thirds of the way down, one about one third of the way down, and one on top. The magician then talks about the burglars hearing sirens and running around as he cuts the deck. The cards are then spread to show that the four burglars have gathered together in the center of the deck in the commotion, with some remark about “safety in numbers.”

A variation involves the four Jacks robbing a bank by flying on a ‘helicopter’ and landing on top of the bank (the deck of cards). The magician places one in the ‘3rd floor’, another in the ‘2nd floor’, another in the ‘1st floor’ (all the ‘floors’ are roughly divided in thirds of the deck like in the original version), and one to guard the helicopter. Then, they hear the police arrive and the robbers ascend the bank and fly off via their helicopter. The magician takes the first four cards of the deck and shows to the audience that it is the four Jacks.

Method

When the four Jacks are shown, three other cards are hidden behind them. All four jacks are placed on top of the deck, and the other cards are placed in different places in the deck as the story is told.

Sources

• Todd, Joseph P. Big Bag of Tricks for Boys and Girls.

“Stupid Pet Tricks”, and, subsequently, “Stupid Human Tricks”, are well-known segments on Late Night with David Letterman, and, later, The Late Show with David Letterman. Created by Merrill Markoe for David Letterman’s short-lived NBC morning show, The David Letterman Show, the concept was carried over to Letterman’s Late Night, and debuted on that series in 1982. The show originally solicited pets to appear using this simple ad in the New York Times classifieds:

HAVE YOU TAUGHT YOUR PET TO DO SOMETHING ODD?

Late Night with David Letterman on

NBC will feature pets who have been

trained to do unusual things. Pets

must be amateur & owners must be

willing to appear w/ them at auditions

& on the show.

The inuagural segment featured a dog named “Muggsy” who would sneeze on command, and another dog that would answer the phone.

Based on the instant success of “Stupid Pet Tricks,” Letterman devised a similar off-shoot: “Stupid Human Tricks,” which was identical in nature to the Pet Tricks, except (obviously) that people were now doing the wacky stunts.

The rights to both “Stupid Pet Tricks” and “Stupid Human Tricks” were retained by Worldwide Pants, Inc., and were not lost when Letterman moved to the Late Show on CBS in 1993. As a result, they are still performed to this day on the Late Show.

Trademark lines

• About Stupid Pet Tricks: “Remember, this is not a competition, it is only an exhibition — please, no wagering.”
• About Stupid Human Tricks: “Remember, this is not an exhibition, it is a competition — wagering is encouraged.”

Nigromancy (Greek nigro, “black”; manteia, “divination”) is black magic, in particular, the summoning of denizens of Hell. The term was often used interchangably with “necromancy” (divination through the dead) in mediaeval sources, however it properly relates to the summoning of demons and demonic varieties of goetic magic.

The term ‘Goetic Magic’ was used by the Neoplatonists (Plotinus, ca 205-270 CE, and his followers) to mean magic used for profit, and it was divided into “natural magic”, magic that exploits the magical properties of natural objects; and “demonic magic”, which is concerned with the coercion of spirits.

Manual may mean:

• Instructions
  • Instruction manual (computer and video games)
  • Online help
  • Unix manual - known as “man pages”
  • User guide or owner’s manual.
• Manual (music) - a keyboard, as for an organ
• Manual (band)
• Bike Tricks - (a manual is a special kind of wheelie)
• Freestyle skateboarding tricks - (balancing on two wheels)
• Manual transmission
• Done by hand, or not using machinery or electronics to fulfil a function

• And see the name Manuel.

Anaxilaus of Larissa was a physician and Pythagorean philosopher. According to Eusebius, he was banished from Rome in B.C. 28 by Augustus on the charge of practicing magic. Anaxilaus wrote about the “magical” properties of minerals, herbs, and other substances and derived drugs, and is cited by Pliny in this regard. Some believe his exceptional knowledge of natural science allowed him to produce tricks that were mistaken for magic.

References

Three-Handed Whist, also known as Widow Whist, is a variant of the trick-taking game Whist.

“Widow” whist is named because of an extra hand that is dealt just to the left of the dealer. This extra hand is called the “widow” and players may have a chance to use the widow instead of their own hand.

Card Rank

A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

♣ are trump.

♠, ♦ and ♥ are not.

Order of Play

1. Everyone cuts the deck and high card is dealer.
2. Deal out 4 hands, with the “widow” always being the first hand to the left of the dealer. Each hand should have 13 cards.
3. Now, the person just to the left of the dealer has first choice at the widow. If the first person to choose has a good hand, he/she just passes it to the next person on their left.
4. If someone takes the Widow, that person needs to collect 4 tricks total for that round. Otherwise, only 3 tricks are needed to break even.
5. After taking the widow, that person’s hand is passed to the left (unless you are back to the dealer, in which case you are done). If someone else would take that rejected hand, they only have to get 3 tricks. Please note that if someone else rejected that hand, it’s doubtful that you would want it. However if your hand is bad enough…  :)
6. Play begins with player to the left of the dealer.

• Every game of widow is played “high”, meaning you want to collect as many tricks as you can. There is no “granding” process like in 4 player Minnesota whist.
• Each player is for him/herself. No teams in 3 player widow whist.
• The person who originally picked the widow can choose to keep his hand instead. However, that person still has to get 4 tricks because he/she picked up the widow.

Taking Tricks

Similar to 4 handed, the person who leads lays down a card from his/her hand. Everyone must follow suit if they can (in clockwise motion). If you don’t have the suit, lay down any other card. Highest card of the lead suit takes the trick, with the exception of the clubs suit. Clubs are trump and will always take any other suit. Whoever takes the trick leads the next one. Play continues until all cards are gone. Dealer moves one to the left.

• NOTE: You MUST follow suit if you can
• A rule variation: some people play if you don’t have the lead suit, you MUST play a club if you have one. (i.e. Hearts was lead, you have no hearts. With this rule in place you would HAVE to lay a club.

Scoring

• You can get negative scores!
• If you picked up the widow, you get 1 point for every trick over 4. (i.e. 2 tricks = -2 pts, 4 tricks = 0 pts, 5 tricks = 1 pt)
• If you didn’t pick up the widow, you get 1 point for every trick over 3. (ie 4 tricks = 1 point, 5 = 2 pts)

Prest-O Change-O is a 1939 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Chuck Jones, and first released on March 25, 1939 by Warner Bros.. It marks the second appearance of Happy Rabbit (the Prototype of Bugs Bunny).

About the film

Two rogue dogs are being pursued by a dog catcher until they hide in an abandoned house. There they encounter a trunk owned by Sham-Fu the magician (unseen). They opened it, and all manner of magic tricks come out of the trunk, including Happy, its pet rabbit. Happy tricks the two dogs repeatedly, causing them endless frustration, until he is bested by the bigger of the two dogs, who bops him to a lampshade.

Trivia

This is the only cartoon where Happy Rabbit is defeated, a vice-versa on where he normally wins.

Link

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The Chen Lee Water Suspension is a magic trick.

The Effect: At first, an empty tube is shown to the audience. The magician proves that it is empty by passing an empty cup through the tube. The magician can even pass a silk through the tube to prove that the tube really is empty. Next, the magician picks up a pitcher full of water and slowly pours the water into the tube, where it magically stays suspended. The magician can even pass a silk through the water-filled tube, and the silk does not get wet. Finally, the magician picks up the empty cup and passes it through the bottom of the tube and when it emerges through the top, it is seen to be filled with water.

The Chen Lee Water Suspension was invented by U.F. Grant in 1962.

Barry Jones (born April 16 1982) is a Scottish magician.

Jones was brought up in Portlethen, Aberdeen, and is one half of Barry and Stuart (who also go by the name 2magicians).

A magic dvd made by Barry and Stuart was seen by producers from Objective Productions. This resulted in their first TV series, Magick, after which the pair moved to London where they regularly perform on the London Comedy Circuit.

Jones has worked with MacLeod (the other member of 2magicians) in a number of other TV shows, including: Dirty Tricks and When Magic Tricks Go Wrong.

In December 2005, the pair presented a programme tracing the miracles of Jesus entitled The Magic of Jesus. In 2006, Barry Jones performed with Stuart MacLeod in Tricks From the Bible, where they were performing magical tricks from the Old Testament. It was shown on June 2nd, Channel 4 UK at 10:30pm.

His TV series Magick was aired in 2006/2007 both in the US and Australia with the respective titles ‘Crack Magic’ and ‘Sick Tricks’.

The Detachable Thumb (unknown originator) is a very simple close-up illusion.

Effect

The performer appears to remove the end of his own thumb; moving it back and forth along his hand or lifting it up.

Method

There is no particular secret to this illusion: the performer simply holds out one hand sideways with the palm out and the tip of the thumb folded down behind the hand. Then he places his other thumb bent so that the tip appears to be connected to the folded-down thumb with the forefinger bent to cover the joint.

Credits

There is no known originator of this trick, and it is likely to be among the oldest tricks in the world.

Known variations

• Meir Yedid (USA) has created “Finger Fantasies”, a multitude of variations in which his fingers disappear and reappear in odd ways.

Jonathan Goodwin (born February 20 1980) is a British TV escapologist, and brother of journalist and TV presenter Jane Harvey. He first appeared on Channel 4 TV programme Dirty Tricks and has subsequently appeared in TV specials The Seven Stupidest Things to Escape From, and Deathwish Live.
His signature is “lo-fi” escapes where he is apparently helped by his dad.

Goodwin caused a national outcry when his stunt, Cheating the Gallows, went wrong live on national television and he was hanged. Luckily he survived, suffering only minor rope burns.

Jonathan now appears on Channel 4’s Balls of Steel perfoming similar acts to what he did in Dirty Tricks

External links

• Goodwin’s website
• archive of Monkey Magic website
• Dirty Tricks website
  

Needle-through-arm is a magic effect that was popularized by comedy actor/magician Harry Anderson. The trick can either be performed as part of a stage magic or a parlor magic routine. As the name would suggest, needle-through-arm relies on shock value to be a comedic effect.

In presentation, the magician produces a hat pin, roughly ten inches long and demonstrates that it is sharp by using it to pop a balloon. He then proceeds to sterilize the underside of his forearm with alcohol and, holding his arm so that it is not facing the audience, insert the needle through the skin of his arm. From the audience’s perspective, this is not very impressive until the magician lowers his arm for the audience to see. The needle appears to pass about two inches under the skin. The new wound then appears to bleed, with the blood dripping down the magician’s arm. The needle can be slid back and forth through the wound. After the needle is removed, the magician cleans his arm which can be offered for inspection.

By most accounts, the trick was invented by Bruce Spangler in the 1950s. It was sold under the name “You Do Voo Doo”. Several versions of the trick are sold today, arguably the most popular being the version by Anderson. The only licensed version of this effect is the one produced by George Robinson at Viking Magic.

A Pantriagonal Diagonal magic cube is a magic cube that is a combination Pantriagonal magic cube and Diagonal magic cube. All main and broken triagonals must sum correctly, In addition, it will contain 3m order m simple magic squares in the orthogonal planes, and 6 order m pandiagonal magic squares in the oblique planes.

A proper pantriagdiag magic cube contains exactly 7m² + 6m lines that sum to m(m³ + 1)/2.

For short, I will reduce this unwieldy name to PantriagDiag.
This is number 4 in what is now 6 classes of magic cubes. So far, very little is known of this class of cube. The only ones constructed so far are order 8 (not associated and associated). Is order 8 the smallest possible for this type of cube?
This cube was discovered in 2004 by Mitsutoshi Nakamura.

See also

Magic cube classes

External links

• http://homepage2.nifty.com/googol/magcube/en/  : Mitsutoshi Nakamura’s Magic Cubes and Tesseracts
• http://members.shaw.ca/hdhcubes/  : Harvey Heinz All about cubes

Bowl-A-Rama is a stage magic trick invented by Kevin James.

The magician holds up a pad, on which he draws a picture of a bowling ball, with the words “Bowling Ball” surrounding it. He then closes the pad, holds it in front of him, and a physical bowling ball appears to drop from the centre of the pad. The magician then re-opens the pad, revealing that the picture of the bowling ball has disappeared from the paper, although the words remain.

Also the name of the bowling alley located in Springfield, fictional city from the television series The Simpsons.

The cut and restore rope trick is a magic effect where the performer will cut a piece of rope, tie it together and then magic away the knot leaving an untouched rope.

The performer sometimes asks a member of the audience to try to perform the trick with him on stage, and they are inevitably surprised to find that the magician’s rope is restored at the end of the trick while their rope is not.

Method

There are two ways this trick is commonly performed. Both methods involve misdirection of the audience to suggest the rope is cut in two when it is in fact not. This is usually accomplished by looping the rope in the palm of the hand while showing two additional rope ends to give the illusion the magician is holding 2 separate pieces of rope.

The additional ends either come from one end of the rope which was cut as though it was the middle (the simplest way to accomplish this is by tying an ordinary square knot between one end of the rope and its midpoint, then making the cut in the short end), or by palming an extra piece of rope of the same type.

Barry Jones (born April 16 1982) is a Scottish magician.

Jones was brought up in Portlethen, Aberdeen, and is one half of Barry and Stuart (who also go by the name 2magicians).

A magic dvd made by Barry and Stuart was seen by producers from Objective Productions. This resulted in their first TV series, Magick, after which the pair moved to London where they regularly perform on the London Comedy Circuit.

Jones has worked with MacLeod (the other member of 2magicians) in a number of other TV shows, including: Dirty Tricks and When Magic Tricks Go Wrong.

In December 2005, the pair presented a programme tracing the miracles of Jesus entitled The Magic of Jesus. In 2006, Barry Jones performed with Stuart MacLeod in Tricks From the Bible, where they were performing magical tricks from the Old Testament. It was shown on June 2nd, Channel 4 UK at 10:30pm.

His TV series Magick was aired in 2006/2007 both in the US and Australia with the respective titles ‘Crack Magic’ and ‘Sick Tricks’.

Jonathan Goodwin (born February 20 1980) is a British TV escapologist, and brother of journalist and TV presenter Jane Harvey. He first appeared on Channel 4 TV programme Dirty Tricks and has subsequently appeared in TV specials The Seven Stupidest Things to Escape From, and Deathwish Live.
His signature is “lo-fi” escapes where he is apparently helped by his dad.

Goodwin caused a national outcry when his stunt, Cheating the Gallows, went wrong live on national television and he was hanged. Luckily he survived, suffering only minor rope burns.

Jonathan now appears on Channel 4’s Balls of Steel perfoming similar acts to what he did in Dirty Tricks

External links

• Goodwin’s website
• archive of Monkey Magic website
• Dirty Tricks website

A magic series is a set of distinct positive numbers which add up to the magic sum of a magic square, thus potentially making up a line in a magic square.

So, in an n × n magic square using the numbers from 1 to n², a magic series is a set of n distinct numbers adding up to n(n²+1)/2. For n = 2, there are just two magic series, 1+4 and 2+3, and there is no magic square. The eight magic series when n = 3 all appear in the rows, columns and diagonals of a 3 × 3 magic square.

Maurice Kraitchik gave the number of magic series up to n = 7 in Mathematical Recreations in 1942 . In 2002, Henry Bottomley extended this up to n = 36 and independently Walter Trump up to n = 32. In 2005, Trump extended this to n = 54 (over 2×10¹¹¹) while Bottomley gave an experimental approximation for the numbers of magic series:

<math>\frac{1}{\pi} \cdot \sqrt{\frac{3}{e}} \cdot \frac{(e n)^n}{n^3-\frac{3}{5}n^2+\frac{2}{7}n}</math>

In July 2006, Robert Gerbicz extended this sequence up to n = 150.

External links

• Walter Trump’s pages on magic series
• Number of magic series up to order 150

A Diagonal Magic Cube is an improvement over the simple magic cube. It is the second of six magic cube classes when ranked by the number of lines summing correctly.

In a diagonal magic cube of order m, all 6m of the diagonals in the m planes parallel to the top, front, and sides of the cube must sum correctly. This means that the cube contains 3m simple magic squares of order m.
Because the cube contains so many magic squares, it was considered for many years to be perfect (although other types of cubes were also sometimes called a perfect magic cube.

It is now known that there are three higher classes of cubes.

The (proper) diagonal magic cube has a total of 3m² + 6m + 4 correctly summing lines and 3m + 6 simple magic squares.

The new definition perfect magic cube has a total of 13m² correct lines and 9m pandiagonal magic squares.

NOTE: Traditionally, n has been used to indicate the order of the magic hypercube. However, in recent years, due to the increasing emphasis on higher dimension hypercubes, there is a trend to use m to indicate order and n to indicate dimension.

See also

• Magic cube classes

External links

• New definition:
  • Harvey Heinz’s magic cubes
    
  • Aale de Winkel’s Magic Encyclopedia

• Old definition:
  • Christian Boyer’s Multimagic cubes
  • Walter Trump’s Search for the smallest ‘perfect’ cube

The zombie ball is a magic illusion in which a metal sphere on a small pedestal is covered with a silk cloth, and appears to levitate upwards carrying the cloth with it. The magician continues to hold two corners of the cloth. The ball dances and seemingly moves of its own accord.

Routines can involve the magician letting the cloth hang down and the sphere sitting on the top edge, the sphere seemingly floating down behind the magician and back up, appearing behind his arm, and floating so high up the magician has to stand on his tip toes to pull it back down.

The ball then returns to its stand and the cloth is removed.

The effect was invented by magician Joe Karson, in the 1940s.

Three-Handed Whist, also known as Widow Whist, is a variant of the trick-taking game Whist.

“Widow” whist is named because of an extra hand that is dealt just to the left of the dealer. This extra hand is called the “widow” and players may have a chance to use the widow instead of their own hand.

Card Rank

A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

♣ are trump.

♠, ♦ and ♥ are not.

Order of Play

1. Everyone cuts the deck and high card is dealer.
2. Deal out 4 hands, with the “widow” always being the first hand to the left of the dealer. Each hand should have 13 cards.
3. Now, the person just to the left of the dealer has first choice at the widow. If the first person to choose has a good hand, he/she just passes it to the next person on their left.
4. If someone takes the Widow, that person needs to collect 4 tricks total for that round. Otherwise, only 3 tricks are needed to break even.
5. After taking the widow, that person’s hand is passed to the left (unless you are back to the dealer, in which case you are done). If someone else would take that rejected hand, they only have to get 3 tricks. Please note that if someone else rejected that hand, it’s doubtful that you would want it. However if your hand is bad enough…  :)
6. Play begins with player to the left of the dealer.

• Every game of widow is played “high”, meaning you want to collect as many tricks as you can. There is no “granding” process like in 4 player Minnesota whist.
• Each player is for him/herself. No teams in 3 player widow whist.
• The person who originally picked the widow can choose to keep his hand instead. However, that person still has to get 4 tricks because he/she picked up the widow.

Taking Tricks

Similar to 4 handed, the person who leads lays down a card from his/her hand. Everyone must follow suit if they can (in clockwise motion). If you don’t have the suit, lay down any other card. Highest card of the lead suit takes the trick, with the exception of the clubs suit. Clubs are trump and will always take any other suit. Whoever takes the trick leads the next one. Play continues until all cards are gone. Dealer moves one to the left.

• NOTE: You MUST follow suit if you can
• A rule variation: some people play if you don’t have the lead suit, you MUST play a club if you have one. (i.e. Hearts was lead, you have no hearts. With this rule in place you would HAVE to lay a club.

Scoring

• You can get negative scores!
• If you picked up the widow, you get 1 point for every trick over 4. (i.e. 2 tricks = -2 pts, 4 tricks = 0 pts, 5 tricks = 1 pt)
• If you didn’t pick up the widow, you get 1 point for every trick over 3. (ie 4 tricks = 1 point, 5 = 2 pts)

Technical flatground skateboarding is the performance of complicated maneuvers on flat ground; meaning that there are no ramps, rails, or any obstacles of any kind except a person and their skateboard.

Tricks often include many different kinds of flips and spins including rail tricks, 50-50 tricks, casper tricks, and rolling tricks.

Technical tricks can include triple fingerflips, 2 1/2 flips out of 50-50 stand, triple rail flips or even quadruple rail flips. Other tricks include broken fingers, corousels, double fan flips, TV stands, jawbreakers, and a multitude of complicated ollie flip tricks.

“Stupid Pet Tricks”, and, subsequently, “Stupid Human Tricks”, are well-known segments on Late Night with David Letterman, and, later, The Late Show with David Letterman. Created by Merrill Markoe for David Letterman’s short-lived NBC morning show, The David Letterman Show, the concept was carried over to Letterman’s Late Night, and debuted on that series in 1982. The show originally solicited pets to appear using this simple ad in the New York Times classifieds:

HAVE YOU TAUGHT YOUR PET TO DO SOMETHING ODD?

Late Night with David Letterman on

NBC will feature pets who have been

trained to do unusual things. Pets

must be amateur & owners must be

willing to appear w/ them at auditions

& on the show.

The inuagural segment featured a dog named “Muggsy” who would sneeze on command, and another dog that would answer the phone.

Based on the instant success of “Stupid Pet Tricks,” Letterman devised a similar off-shoot: “Stupid Human Tricks,” which was identical in nature to the Pet Tricks, except (obviously) that people were now doing the wacky stunts.

The rights to both “Stupid Pet Tricks” and “Stupid Human Tricks” were retained by Worldwide Pants, Inc., and were not lost when Letterman moved to the Late Show on CBS in 1993. As a result, they are still performed to this day on the Late Show.

Trademark lines

• About Stupid Pet Tricks: “Remember, this is not a competition, it is only an exhibition — please, no wagering.”
• About Stupid Human Tricks: “Remember, this is not an exhibition, it is a competition — wagering is encouraged.”

The Detachable Thumb (unknown originator) is a very simple close-up illusion.

Effect

The performer appears to remove the end of his own thumb; moving it back and forth along his hand or lifting it up.

Method

There is no particular secret to this illusion: the performer simply holds out one hand sideways with the palm out and the tip of the thumb folded down behind the hand. Then he places his other thumb bent so that the tip appears to be connected to the folded-down thumb with the forefinger bent to cover the joint.

Credits

There is no known originator of this trick, and it is likely to be among the oldest tricks in the world.

Known variations

• Meir Yedid (USA) has created “Finger Fantasies”, a multitude of variations in which his fingers disappear and reappear in odd ways.

Holdup is a play in contract bridge, whereby the declarer ducks one or more trick to opponents, usually in notrump contracts, in order to cut their communications. The primary purpose of holdup is to give as many tricks to opponents as needed to exhaust all the cards in the suit from one of their hands. If that hand regains the lead, it will not be able to put the partner on lead to cash its tricks. Holdup is one of basic techniques in play.

Example

South is playing a contract of three notrump, and West leads the king of diamonds. There are nine needed tricks: two spades, two hearts, one diamond and four clubs. However, if the declarer wins the ace of diamonds at trick one and drives out the ace of clubs, the defenders will cash four diamond tricks to set the contract.

South can assure the contract (provided the ace of clubs is with East) by holding up the ace of diamonds: (s)he plays low to the first two diamond tricks
(known as ducking) and wins the ace of diamonds on the third trick. Now, when East wins the ace of clubs, (s)he has no diamonds left to play. If West holds the ace of clubs, the contract is impossible to make. If, on the other hand, East had a diamond, that would mean that diamonds were originally split 4-4 and defenders could only cash three tricks in the suit, so the contract wasn’t endangered.

Rule of seven

Take the number of cards you hold in the defenders’ suit, subtract from seven, and duck that many tricks.

In the hand above, there are five diamonds in the combined North-South hands, and declarer must duck two tricks (winning the third).

If there were an additional diamond in either the North or South hand, for a total of six, then declarer need only duck one trick (winning the second). This is because if West has five diamonds (and North-South six), then East will have only two and will be out of diamonds after two rounds of the suit. If East does have three diamonds, then West will have only four and the defenders can cash only two additional diamond tricks (for a total of three) upon winning the ace of clubs.

This rule, of course, assumes you are playing in 3 NT. It can be generalized for all notrump contracts as follows:

Add four to the rank of the contract and subtract the number of cards you hold in the suit.

See also

• Avoidance play

Magic Island refers to various geographical locations in the United States.

• Magic Island (Hawaii), peninsula and neighborhood in Honolulu, Hawaii
• Magic Island (West Virginia), an island in the Kanawha River

Other:

• Magic Island was also the name of an old-time radio program.

Barry Jones (born April 16 1982) is a Scottish magician.

Jones was brought up in Portlethen, Aberdeen, and is one half of Barry and Stuart (who also go by the name 2magicians).

A magic dvd made by Barry and Stuart was seen by producers from Objective Productions. This resulted in their first TV series, Magick, after which the pair moved to London where they regularly perform on the London Comedy Circuit.

Jones has worked with MacLeod (the other member of 2magicians) in a number of other TV shows, including: Dirty Tricks and When Magic Tricks Go Wrong.

In December 2005, the pair presented a programme tracing the miracles of Jesus entitled The Magic of Jesus. In 2006, Barry Jones performed with Stuart MacLeod in Tricks From the Bible, where they were performing magical tricks from the Old Testament. It was shown on June 2nd, Channel 4 UK at 10:30pm.

His TV series Magick was aired in 2006/2007 both in the US and Australia with the respective titles ‘Crack Magic’ and ‘Sick Tricks’.

The vanishing bird cage, also known as the flying birdcage, is a classic parlour magic effect that was invented by French magician Buatier De Kolta. The trick has also been used by magicians Carl Hertz, Harry Blackstone, Sr. and John Mulholland.

The magician displays a bird cage, holding it between both of his hands. The cage is rectangular, about six inches tall by six inches wide by eight inches long, and made of wire on all six sides. Often there is a bird, though in modern performances of the act it is usually fake, inside the cage. The magician will offer the cage for inspection by an audience member, but he will never actually release his grip of it. Then, without covering the cage, the magician makes a sudden motion and the cage (and anything inside) vanishes from sight.
A variation of the trick was featured in the 2006 film The Prestige.

Method

The bird cage is designed to collapse if it is not supported from both ends. Two of the opposite corners of the cage pull away from each other so that the box becomes somewhat of a tube, about 18 inches long and only one or two inches thick, that resembles a bundle of wire that is thicker in the middle than at the ends. An elastic cord attached to one end of the cage runs up the sleeve of the magician’s jacket so that when the cage collapses, it is drawn up his sleeve and hidden from view. As a living bird is likely to be injured or killed when the cage collapses, fake birds are most commonly used in modern presentations of the vanishing bird cage.

References

• Hay, Harry. Cyclopedia of Magic. (1949) ISBN 0-486-21808-2

The vanishing bird cage, also known as the flying birdcage, is a classic parlour magic effect that was invented by French magician Buatier De Kolta. The trick has also been used by magicians Carl Hertz, Harry Blackstone, Sr. and John Mulholland.

The magician displays a bird cage, holding it between both of his hands. The cage is rectangular, about six inches tall by six inches wide by eight inches long, and made of wire on all six sides. Often there is a bird, though in modern performances of the act it is usually fake, inside the cage. The magician will offer the cage for inspection by an audience member, but he will never actually release his grip of it. Then, without covering the cage, the magician makes a sudden motion and the cage (and anything inside) vanishes from sight.
A variation of the trick was featured in the 2006 film The Prestige.

Method

The bird cage is designed to collapse if it is not supported from both ends. Two of the opposite corners of the cage pull away from each other so that the box becomes somewhat of a tube, about 18 inches long and only one or two inches thick, that resembles a bundle of wire that is thicker in the middle than at the ends. An elastic cord attached to one end of the cage runs up the sleeve of the magician’s jacket so that when the cage collapses, it is drawn up his sleeve and hidden from view. As a living bird is likely to be injured or killed when the cage collapses, fake birds are most commonly used in modern presentations of the vanishing bird cage.

References

• Hay, Harry. Cyclopedia of Magic. (1949) ISBN 0-486-21808-2

Magic City is a nickname of several cities, usually commemorating a remarkable growth in size over a short time. The cities include:

In the United States:

• Barberton, Ohio
• Billings, Montana
• Birmingham, Alabama - City most commonly known and referred to as the Magic City.
• Bogalusa, Louisiana
• Cheyenne, Wyoming
• Chicago, Illinois
• Endicott, New York
• Leadville, Colorado
• Miami, Florida
• Millinocket, Maine
• Minot, North Dakota
• Moberly, Missouri
• Roanoke, Virginia
• Florence, South Carolina

Elsewhere:

• Freeport, Bahamas

Magic City may also refer to:

• Magic Town, a 1947 American film
• Magic City Morning Star, a Maine newspaper
• Magic City, a rock band from Columbus, Ohio
• “Magic City,” a song by 2XL
• Magic City, an album by MC Magic
• Magic City, a strip club in Atlanta, Georgia
• Magic City, a novel by Drew Lerman

Blackstone’s Card Trick Without Cards is a magic trick. As the trick requires only that a card is thought of, it does not require the use of a deck of cards.

Method

A spectator is instructed to think of any card (other than the joker). The magician then gives the following instructions:

• Take the card’s face value (with aces counting as 1 and royal cards counting as 11, 12 and 13 respectively)
• Double it.
• Add 3.
• Multiply by 5.
• If the card the spectator is thinking of is a heart, add 1.
• If the card the spectator is thinking of is a spade, add 2.
• If the card the spectator is thinking of is a diamond, add 3.
• If the card the spectator is thinking of is a club, add 4.

The spectator then tells the magician the number the spectator is now thinking of. The magician then names the card.

Secret

The series of mathematical manipulations results in any given card producing a unique number. The multiplication by 2 and 5 means that the final number is ten times the card’s value, plus a fixed 15 (for the addition of 3 and the multiplication by 5) and an additional suit-dependent figure. Thus both suit and value are readily identifiable.

Literature

• Harry Blackstone, Blackstone’s Tricks Anyone Can Do ISBN 0-8065-0862-0
• John Scarne, Scarne on Card Tricks ISBN 0-486-42735-8

The Detachable Thumb (unknown originator) is a very simple close-up illusion.

Effect

The performer appears to remove the end of his own thumb; moving it back and forth along his hand or lifting it up.

Method

There is no particular secret to this illusion: the performer simply holds out one hand sideways with the palm out and the tip of the thumb folded down behind the hand. Then he places his other thumb bent so that the tip appears to be connected to the folded-down thumb with the forefinger bent to cover the joint.

Credits

There is no known originator of this trick, and it is likely to be among the oldest tricks in the world.

Known variations

• Meir Yedid (USA) has created “Finger Fantasies”, a multitude of variations in which his fingers disappear and reappear in odd ways.

The zombie ball is a magic illusion in which a metal sphere on a small pedestal is covered with a silk cloth, and appears to levitate upwards carrying the cloth with it. The magician continues to hold two corners of the cloth. The ball dances and seemingly moves of its own accord.

Routines can involve the magician letting the cloth hang down and the sphere sitting on the top edge, the sphere seemingly floating down behind the magician and back up, appearing behind his arm, and floating so high up the magician has to stand on his tip toes to pull it back down.

The ball then returns to its stand and the cloth is removed.

The effect was invented by magician Joe Karson, in the 1940s.

Tricky TV is a fast paced modern magic show for CITV. Presented by top children’s presenter and magician Stephen Mulhern - the show features magic on the street, wicked wind ups and teaches a number of tricks step by step. It has been nominated for a BAFTA in Nov 2006

The show is produced by The Foundation, the same company that makes Finger Tips, Globo Loco and Holly & Stephen’s Saturday Showdown which also starred Stephen.

Tricky TV was first broadcast in the 4pm slot on ITV from September 2005. Creative consultant was Paul Andrews (Magician). The show’s executive producer was Vanessa Hill for The Foundation.

The show featured magic tricks ranging from making a tank vanish to making an entire football team appear. The wicked wind-ups included a gorilla that came to life and a cinema with exploding popcorn and unstoppable drinks machines.

Tricky Quickies is a cut down version of the show which has a duration of 5 minutes.

Series 2 of the show is being shown on ITV 1 on Saturday Mornings from Oct 13th 2007

There was also a Tricky TV spooky special aired at 4.00pm on the 31st of October on CITV.

There are lots of differant parts to the show such as Beat the Cheat ,Wicked Wind-Ups and a Big Trick.

Magic lantern may mean:

• magic lantern, the ancestor of the modern slide projector
• Magic Lantern (software), the FBI’s keylogger.
• The Magic Lantern is the name of a theater in Prague which served as the headquarters for the reform movement (see Velvet Revolution
  
• It is also the name of a book by Timothy Garton Ash recounting the fall of communism throughout Eastern Europe
• Magic Lantern (comics) is an alternate version of the hero Green Lantern who comes from Earth-17, an Earth based on drug culture.

Magic Island refers to various geographical locations in the United States.

• Magic Island (Hawaii), peninsula and neighborhood in Honolulu, Hawaii
• Magic Island (West Virginia), an island in the Kanawha River

Other:

• Magic Island was also the name of an old-time radio program.

In mathematics, a P-multimagic cube is a magic cube that remains magic even if all its numbers are replaced by their k-th power for 1 <= k <= P. Thus, a magic cube is bimagic if and only if it is 2-multimagic, and trimagic if and only if it is 3-multimagic.

See also

• Magic square
• Multimagic square

The “undercut” is also a means of cutting a deck of cards, used in certain magic tricks.

The undercut is a haircut much like a bowl cut except the ridge of the bowl is not where the cutting ends. The ridge of the bowl is lifted so the hair is clipper cut further up the side of the head an additional one to two inches. This allows the head to be shaken and the bowl look will always return to its regular shape. The sides may either be “white-walled” or cut to 1/8″ length. The bottom of the back may be either faded or square cut.

An undercut refers more generally to any hairstyle where the sides and/or back of the head are closely trimmed or shaved while hair on top of the head remains long. Such hairstyles are popular among rivetheads and members of the cyber subculture.

See also

• khokhol

Shoot Ogawa is a magician from Tokyo, Japan who has been interested in magic from the age of 10. Ogawa has been featured on television in Japan and is a corporate entertainer.

One of his most remarkable tricks is the Ninja Rings.

His most notable awards include the Magician of the Year 2002 in two categories (lecture and close-up) and 1st place at the close-up competition in the MacMillan International Convention, also in 2002.

He has been featured on the cover of the Magic Magazine March 2003 issue. He has also appeared on “After Dark At The Magic Castle.”"After Dark at the Magic Castle”, December 16, 2006 documentary on A&E Network

References

External links

• http://www.holyshoot.com

The Aquarian Illusion is a variation of the Metamorphosis or Substitution Trunk magic illusion. It was created by Alan Wakeling for Mark Wilson, who performed it in The Magic Circus series and a HBO special Mumbo Jumbo! It’s Magic, and in closing his Las Vegas shows.http://www.markwilsonmagic.com/MagicCircusVol1.htm

The illusion consists of a large tank made of acrylic glass with a lid. The tank is filled with water, a beautiful swimsuit-clad lady assistant then climbs inside. She takes a deep breath, then submerges underwater. The lid is then secured to the tank with padlocks and chains wrapped around the tank and also padlocked. The beautiful woman is now trapped underwater, with no source of air. If anything were to go wrong, she would drown!

A curtain is lowered over the tank, concealing it from the audience. The magician ducks inside the curtain, sticks his head out twice, counting “One! Two!”, then the third time, the assistant sticks her head out calling “Three!” The curtain is then parted, revealing the magician now locked inside the tank.

References

External links

• Mark Wilson Magic Official Site
• Video of illusion

Parlor magic is done for larger audiences than close-up magic (which is for a few people or even one person) and for smaller audiences than stage magic. In parlor magic, the performer is usually standing and on the same level as the audience, which may be seated on chairs or even on the floor. According to the Encyclopedia of Magic and Magicians by T.A. Waters, “The phrase [parlor magic] is often used as a pejorative to imply that an effect under discussion is not suitable for professional performance.” Also, many magicians consider the term “parlor” to be old fashioned and limiting, since this type of magic is often done in rooms much larger than the traditional parlor, or even outdoors. A better term for this branch of magic may be “platform,” “club” or “cabaret.”

Most so-called “birthday-party magicians” do magic that fits into this classification. These tricks include the “Miser’s Dream” (where a seemingly endless supply of coins is produced from thin air), sucker tricks (like the “die box”, where a giant die is put in a two-compartment box; the magician makes it vanish but the audience believe he simply shifts it to the other compartment; eventually the magician opens both sides of the box and the die is gone; it has appeared in a previously-empty hat); audience participation tricks (like the breakaway wand, where a wand remains rigid for the magician but falls apart every time the volunteer touches it); production effects (like the square circle, in which a bottomless, topless box with a screened front encloses a bottomless, topless cylinder. Both are shown empty and put together again; the magician then produces large quantities of silk scarves, fruit, bottles, and so on from the “empty” cylinder, inside the square box); and so on. There are countless effects that could be considered as fitting into this classification.

Parlor, or club, magicians generally work without assistants and within a few miles of their homes (unlike stage magicians, who may have several in their crew - both backstage and on stage - and may travel thousands of miles between jobs). This is because payment is less for parlor magicians (but still generally more than for close-up performers). Performances of this category of magic include civic and fraternal organizations, business groups, private parties, youth groups, church societies, public dinners, and similar venues.

Parlor magicians are not as well known to the general public (if at all) as stage magicians such as David Copperfield and Lance Burton. Parlor or platform magicians include people such as Americans Hank Moorehouse, John Mulholland and Larry White, who is also the former magic editor of MUM magazine; Canadians Peter Marucci, and Darryl Hutton; Europeans Finn Jon, Fred Kaps, Alan Shaxon, and Terry Seabrooke.

Magic bullet may refer to:

• “Magic bullet”, a concept of selectively targeting a bacterium without affecting other organisms, most associated with Paul Ehrlich and syphilis research
  • The Magic Bullet, a 1940 Hollywood biopic about syphilis researcher Paul Ehrlich, starring Edward G. Robinson
• “Magic bullet theory”, a term used to disparage the conclusion of the Warren Commission report that a single bullet caused four wounds during the John F. Kennedy assassination
• Hypodermic needle model, the “Magic bullet” principle in media theory
• Magic Bullet (appliance), a compact blender manufactured by Homeland Housewares
• Magic bullet (software), digital video film look plugin
• “The Magic Bullet” (Angel episode), an episode of the television series Angel
• Magic Bullet Productions, a Doctor Who spinoff producing company

See also:

• Silver bullet

The International Magicians Society (IMS) is the world’s largest magic society as recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records. The IMS began in 1968 and now has over 37,000 members worldwide. It was created to help promote and preserve the art of magic and provide a format where magicians (and magic hobbyists) could share their secrets and ideas.

External links

• International Magicians Society (IMS)

In mathematics, a magic hypercube is the k-dimensional generalization of magic squares, magic cubes and magic tesseracts, that is, a number of integers arranged in an n x n x n x … x n pattern such that the sum of the numbers on each pillar (along any axis) as well as the main space diagonals is equal to a single number, the so-called magic constant of the hypercube, denoted M_k(n). It can be shown that if a magic hypercube consists of the numbers 1, 2, …, n^k, then it has magic number

<math>M_k(n) = \frac{n(n^k+1)}{2}</math>

If, in addition, the numbers on every cross section diagonal also sum up to the hypercube’s magic number, the hypercube is called a perfect magic hypercube; otherwise, it is called a semiperfect magic hypercube. The number n is called the order of the magic hypercube.

Five-, six-, seven- and eight-dimensional magic hypercubes of order three have been constructed by J. R. Hendricks.

Marian Trenkler proved the following theorem:
A p-dimensional magic hypercube of order n exists if and only if
p > 1 and n is different from 2 or p = 1. A construction of a magic hypercube follows from the proof.

The R programming language includes a module, library(magic), that will create magic hypercubes of any dimension (with n a multiple of 4).

External links

• Hendricks material compiled and posted before his death
• Magic Cubes - Introduction by Harvey D. Heinz
• page about J. R. Hendricks
• Magic Cubes and Hypercubes - References
• An algorithm for making magic cubes

See also

• John R. Hendricks
• magic hypercubes
• Nasik magic hypercube

Alex Elmsley (March 2 1929 – January 8 2006) was a British Magician and Computer programmer. He was notable for his invention of the Ghost Count or Elmsley Count.

He began practising magic in 1946, as a teenager. He studied physics and mathematics at Cambridge University; whilst there he was also secretary of the Pentacle Club.

His day job was as a patent agent, and later computer expert. Otherwise, he was an amateur card and close-up magician. He was awarded an AMA Creative Fellowship in 1972.

He created a number of magic tricks, including the Ghost Count, Between Your Palms, Point Of Departure and Diamond Cut Diamond.

He wrote Elmsley’s 4 Card Trick (1967) and Cardwork (1975), and was the subject of The Collected Works of Alex Elmsley (vol. 1 1991, vol. 2 1994).

The special count used in Elmsley’s 4 Card Trick was a great invention to the magical world and was renamed after him as the Elmsley Count

External links

• Elmsley on Magicdirectory.com
• Elmsley from Magicweek.co.uk
• Amazon.com: The collected works of Alex Elmsley: Books: Stephen Minch

Michael Ammar (b. June 25, 1956) is one of America’s best-known close-up magicians, and is famous within the worldwide magical community.

Ammar was born in Logan, West Virginia, and is the youngest of four children.

His interest in magic began when he read a comic book and noticed an advertisement which read “500 tricks for 25 cents!”. Ammar sent his quarter and received a catalog. He began ordering tricks and practicing. Before long, he had a full magic show, complete with doves and a teenage assistant. The community, small as it was, supported him and booked him for local shows for schools and birthdays.

While in college at West Virginia University, Ammar developed friendships with others involved in magic. He began to publish his ideas in the early 1980s, and performed for Johnny Carson, as well as at the Magic Castle.

In 1983, Ammar entered the FISM magic competition and was awarded the Gold Medal for Close-Up Magic. In doing so, he became the second American in the history of the competition to do so.

After winning at FISM, Ammar travelled west and became friends with the great Dai Vernon who became Ammar’s mentor throughout the following years.

He has produced over forty video titles, also books and magazines. In 1999 The Magic Magazine named him one of 100 most influential magicians of the century.

See also

• List of magicians

External links

• Michael Ammar’s Official Site
• WVU alumni profile
• Magic awards Ammar has won
• Documentary about Ammar on lecture tour

The gambler’s palm is a card magic technique used to “palm” a card (to temporarily hide it during a magic trick).

In the gambler’s palm the playing card is placed in the hand lengthwise as in the magician’s palm, but is retained by pressure between the little finger and the right side of the thumb, which lies flat aganst the left side of the hand. The advantages of this palm is that the card is not bent while palming, and the hand may be laid flat on the card table.

Eugene Burger is an American magician based in Chicago Illinois and reputed for his close-up skills and his work in mentalism and Bizarre Magic. He is the author of books on the presentation of close up magic and is featured on several instructional DVDs and videos for magicians. The books include: Intimate Power, The Performance of Closeup Magic, The Experience of Magic, Strange Ceremonies, Spirit Theater, and Mastering the Art of Magic. The video productions include: Eugene Goes Bizarre, Real Magic, Gourmet Closeup Magic and Eugene Burger’s Magical Voyages. He also produced a rare audio program - Growing in the Art of Magic.

Eugene frequently teaches with Jeff McBride at his school of magic in Las Vegas, NV.

External link

• Official Eugene Burger homepage

MAGIC SPIRITS is a German producer of various vodka brands.

Beginning in 1991 sales of Magic Crystal vodka increases up to 13,5 mio. bottles per year. Magic Crystal vodka is produced in 37,5% vol. (75 proof) and 40,0% vol. (80 proof). Further there is Black Magic vodka with 56% vol. (112 proof) which is a winner of a silver medal at the International Wine and Spirits Competition 2005 in London. Additional there is vodka Magic 78 with 156 proof and Magic Crystal Citrus vodka.

External links

• MAGIC SPIRITS — The official site for Magic Spirits

Blackstone’s Card Trick Without Cards is a magic trick. As the trick requires only that a card is thought of, it does not require the use of a deck of cards.

Method

A spectator is instructed to think of any card (other than the joker). The magician then gives the following instructions:

• Take the card’s face value (with aces counting as 1 and royal cards counting as 11, 12 and 13 respectively)
• Double it.
• Add 3.
• Multiply by 5.
• If the card the spectator is thinking of is a heart, add 1.
• If the card the spectator is thinking of is a spade, add 2.
• If the card the spectator is thinking of is a diamond, add 3.
• If the card the spectator is thinking of is a club, add 4.

The spectator then tells the magician the number the spectator is now thinking of. The magician then names the card.

Secret

The series of mathematical manipulations results in any given card producing a unique number. The multiplication by 2 and 5 means that the final number is ten times the card’s value, plus a fixed 15 (for the addition of 3 and the multiplication by 5) and an additional suit-dependent figure. Thus both suit and value are readily identifiable.

Literature

• Harry Blackstone, Blackstone’s Tricks Anyone Can Do ISBN 0-8065-0862-0
• John Scarne, Scarne on Card Tricks ISBN 0-486-42735-8

A magic series is a set of distinct positive numbers which add up to the magic sum of a magic square, thus potentially making up a line in a magic square.

So, in an n × n magic square using the numbers from 1 to n², a magic series is a set of n distinct numbers adding up to n(n²+1)/2. For n = 2, there are just two magic series, 1+4 and 2+3, and there is no magic square. The eight magic series when n = 3 all appear in the rows, columns and diagonals of a 3 × 3 magic square.

Maurice Kraitchik gave the number of magic series up to n = 7 in Mathematical Recreations in 1942 . In 2002, Henry Bottomley extended this up to n = 36 and independently Walter Trump up to n = 32. In 2005, Trump extended this to n = 54 (over 2×10¹¹¹) while Bottomley gave an experimental approximation for the numbers of magic series:

<math>\frac{1}{\pi} \cdot \sqrt{\frac{3}{e}} \cdot \frac{(e n)^n}{n^3-\frac{3}{5}n^2+\frac{2}{7}n}</math>

In July 2006, Robert Gerbicz extended this sequence up to n = 150.

External links

• Walter Trump’s pages on magic series
• Number of magic series up to order 150

In mathematics, a P-multimagic cube is a magic cube that remains magic even if all its numbers are replaced by their k-th power for 1 <= k <= P. Thus, a magic cube is bimagic if and only if it is 2-multimagic, and trimagic if and only if it is 3-multimagic.

See also

• Magic square
• Multimagic square

Holdup is a play in contract bridge, whereby the declarer ducks one or more trick to opponents, usually in notrump contracts, in order to cut their communications. The primary purpose of holdup is to give as many tricks to opponents as needed to exhaust all the cards in the suit from one of their hands. If that hand regains the lead, it will not be able to put the partner on lead to cash its tricks. Holdup is one of basic techniques in play.

Example

South is playing a contract of three notrump, and West leads the king of diamonds. There are nine needed tricks: two spades, two hearts, one diamond and four clubs. However, if the declarer wins the ace of diamonds at trick one and drives out the ace of clubs, the defenders will cash four diamond tricks to set the contract.

South can assure the contract (provided the ace of clubs is with East) by holding up the ace of diamonds: (s)he plays low to the first two diamond tricks
(known as ducking) and wins the ace of diamonds on the third trick. Now, when East wins the ace of clubs, (s)he has no diamonds left to play. If West holds the ace of clubs, the contract is impossible to make. If, on the other hand, East had a diamond, that would mean that diamonds were originally split 4-4 and defenders could only cash three tricks in the suit, so the contract wasn’t endangered.

Rule of seven

Take the number of cards you hold in the defenders’ suit, subtract from seven, and duck that many tricks.

In the hand above, there are five diamonds in the combined North-South hands, and declarer must duck two tricks (winning the third).

If there were an additional diamond in either the North or South hand, for a total of six, then declarer need only duck one trick (winning the second). This is because if West has five diamonds (and North-South six), then East will have only two and will be out of diamonds after two rounds of the suit. If East does have three diamonds, then West will have only four and the defenders can cash only two additional diamond tricks (for a total of three) upon winning the ace of clubs.

This rule, of course, assumes you are playing in 3 NT. It can be generalized for all notrump contracts as follows:

Add four to the rank of the contract and subtract the number of cards you hold in the suit.

See also

• Avoidance play

The gambler’s palm is a card magic technique used to “palm” a card (to temporarily hide it during a magic trick).

In the gambler’s palm the playing card is placed in the hand lengthwise as in the magician’s palm, but is retained by pressure between the little finger and the right side of the thumb, which lies flat aganst the left side of the hand. The advantages of this palm is that the card is not bent while palming, and the hand may be laid flat on the card table.

Les Cents tours de Centour was a French language children’s television show made in Quebec. Its stories revolved around Verbo, a genie with magical power who was trying to recapture Centour (another genie who had escaped from the same land as Verbo).

The show’s foremost purpose was language acquisition, which was conveyed by the way Verbo would do magic: when he needed to perform a trick, he would ask his talisman (named “Memo”) for a formula (always in the form of “it is a [subject], it is a [object], it is the [subject] of the [object]”.) He would then close his eyes and repeat, asking the children at home to do the same.

Centour on his part would perform magic by reciting similar formulas while shaking his magic wristband (which looked like a gaudy wristwatch).

Memo’s constant companion was Picot Cotton, a young human male whose family was often the target of Centour’s tricks.

The term bar trick refers to all optical and magical illusions performed in bars, taverns or similar establishments. The performer is often the bartender, with the recipient or audience of the trick being a patron. A small wager, often the price of a drink, is sometimes made.

Usually, the patron is challenged to perform a task such as placing an olive into a wine glass without touching the olive, or rearranging stirring straws to make patterns. The bartender might claim to perform some feat, such as drinking three beers before the patron has drunk three shots.

In all bar tricks, the solution is obvious when the trick is performed, and the patron is able to replicate it with little subsequent practise.

See also

• Flair bartending

External links

• Bar tricks at BartenderMagic.com
• Bar tricks at AbsolutelyCollegiate.com

Magic hour may refer to:

• Magic Hour (album), by Cast (1999)
• The Magic Hour, a syndicated talk show that starred Magic Johnson
• “Magic Hour” (Charmed episode)
• Magic hour (photography), the period after sunset, prized by cinematographers such as Gordon Willis, during which scenes register on film with captivating light and color effects.
• Magic Hour (music), a defunct indie rock band from Boston, MA, featuring Wayne Rogers (guitars, vocals), Kate Biggar (guitar), Naomi Yang (bass) and Damon Krukowski (drums).

The Tenkai palm is a card magic technique used to palm a card (to temporarily hide it during a magic trick).

A card concealment invented by the Japanese magician Tenkai, whose real name was Teijiro Ishida (Dec 1, 1889 - ????). In the Tenkai palm, the card is lengthwise in the hand but is not flat against the palm; the card instead is held between the thumb which lies below and parallel to the palm and the right side of the palm so that the width of the card is clipped by the length of the thumb. While this palm is easily seen from certain angles, it can allow a much more natural appearance for the magician’s hand. This palming technique is easily adaptable for a jumbo coin, usually 3inches in diameter.

Additionally, the Tenkai allows much more freedom in the way of palming and revealing.

The Sleeper, or Throwdown is one of the most common yo-yo tricks. It is a required state before many other tricks can be pe