Fooling Houdini: Magicians, Mentalists, Math Geeks and the Hidden Powers of the Mind by Alex Stone

Fooling Houdini: Magicians, Mentalists, Math Geeks, and the Hidden Powers of the Mind, by Alex Stone 

Why would a physics PhD student leave Columbia University to study magic? Why do we enjoy being fooled? What does math have to do with it? Answers to these questions and more can be found in Fooling Houdini: Magicians, Mentalists, Math Geeks, and the Hidden Powers of the Mind, by Alex Stone.

Stone was enchanted at age six when he received a magic kit. Enthralled, he immediately began showing off his magic “skills” to everyone he could wheedle into watching. It wasn’t until after he was hauled off the stage in disgrace at the World Championships of Magic in 2008 that he became serious about studying and practicing the magic arts.

Stone’s book is part memoir, part investigation into the hidden subculture of magicians (and street-side con men), and part a look into how and why magicians can fools us—a personal journey rather than a textbook. Obfuscation, distraction, and endless hours of practice all have their part in the success of an illusion. Stone explains how inattentional or perceptual blindness, the “failure to notice an unexpected stimulus that is in plain sight” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inattentional_blindness), is used by magicians to bamboozle their audiences. He describes how the classic short cons (three card Monte and the shell game), well orchestrated ,multi-casted street theater acts, work to fleece carefully selected suckers; how he can distract a patsy while snatching his watch; and how psychics are able (well, actually not) to read minds.

In addition, Stone reveals some of the math and science behind conjuror’s tricks. For example, shuffling, on the average, must be done seven times to mix the deck--a hypothesis tested out by Perci Diaconis, a Harvard mathematician and magician. Shuffling only one or two times still allows the card magician to see out-of-order cards. This mathematical discovery not only tightened up casino security, it strangely enough also had significant impact on the medicine mixing strategies of pharmaceutical companies.

                                                                                                                 

Being a muggle, I didn’t know that there is a world class magic library, The Conjuring Arts Research Center, in New York City. Like Hermione, serious magicians search here for ancient magical secrets. “‘If you want to fool magicians…you’re not going to fool them with a new move. You’re going to fool them with some hundred-year-old mathematical principle…Go dig up some ancient book. Go to the library’” (emphasis gleefully added).

If you’re a budding magician or a mathematician, request Perci Diaconis’ book, Magical Mathematics, the Mathematical Ideas that Animate Great Magic Tricks (793.85 Diaconis) from our catalog. Stone refers to Diaconis as a “naturally gifted magician [and] an underground legend.” Why not learn from the best?

UPDATE. We’re happy to announce, especially for our magic enthusiasts, that we now have the documentary Make Believe, the Battle to Become the World’s Best Teen Magician, in our library. Make Believe follows the journeys of six young magicians from around the planet as they vie for the title of Teen World Champion of Magic. What's more, the magicians share card trick tutorials in the Bonus Materials.

Reviewed by Anne Shirako, Reference Librarian, Ukiah Branch, Mendocino County Library, 3/2013