I love magic. Being a scientist doesn’t take away from the amazement created by a well executed trick. My father sent me a clip of Chris Angel doing a trick where he not cuts, but pulls a woman in half right on a park bench. The trick is incredibly shocking, the people on the set are screaming in fear and surprise. You can see they are visibly shaken.
YouTube video of Chris Angel. I’m going to show this clip and then start a discussion. First question – did he really pull this woman in half? Obviously that did not happen, so what did? The students are going to either work alone or in small groups and try to come up with a way to explain and possibly reproduce the effect.
What I hope to get from this exercise is a little critical thinking. If the woman was not pulled apart, and Chris Angel doesn’t have real magical powers, then it must be a trick. We don’t know how he does it, but we can make educated guesses and then experiment to attempt to reproduce the method.
Can you share the trick of the magic? Just curious. Thanks.
Comment by JM — July 17, 2009 @ 6:30 am |
As an amateur magician, I can tell you the first rule is that you don’t tell how a trick is done except to other magicians, and then only when they are learning the trick. So if I knew, I wouldn’t post it here. But I don’t know, I can only make a somewhat educated guess.
I will say this… magicians will do a whole lot more than you would ever expect for a trick. If you doubt that, ask one how long they practice something to make it look natural, or how much they will spend on a specially built device for just one trick. Check out this Penn & Teller video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H81A3bU68k
Comment by Scott — July 17, 2009 @ 6:36 pm |
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