Regarding a cute online card trick:
http://www.quizyourprofile.com/guessyournumber.swf
This is wonderful! Thank you Mary Ellen for showing it to me. I DO know how it works but it is so well executed that I am almost reluctant to explain it. If you want it to stay mysterious, leave this entry now!
The trick is that they have added great red herrings, where you pick the color or the crystal ball or the door while you say your number a couple of times in you mind. This has nothing to do with the trick. The trick is like the classic twenty-one cards in three rows of seven trick. We start here with twenty-five numbers, and the program asks us which of five colors it is. This narrows us down to only five numbers. Then it distracts us while we choose a color which has nothing to do with the trick. Next it asks us which house our number is in, with six numbers in each of five houses.
Remember the first question? Well each house has exactly one number from each of the original color groups (Plus five extras added for smoke-screen.) They are all colored alike in the houses, further concealing the process. Giving this information tells the program which of the first five numbers we chose, and for all intents and purposes the trick has been executed. The rest is just distraction. Any door you open at the end will have your number.
What I find fascinating is that the computer can take advantage of my mind thinking of the numbers as physical entities as if they were printed on cards. For example, I can see my brain thinking, as I pick a door, that only one door can have “18” behind it. The number on the screen, however, is an imaginary electronic construct with no physical reality, in fact it doesn’t even exist until the door opens, so my wonder that the number actually is “18” is my own darned fault. Schrodinger would be proud!
One other thing is that unlike a carbon and water based magician, who might struggle to remember in the first stage which five numbers are red, which are purple, etc. this is the easiest thing to accomplish for a computer program. One could construct a set of cards that would do the manipulations mechanically, but it would be nowhere near as invisible as the computer program.
http://www.quizyourprofile.com/guessyournumber.swf
This is wonderful! Thank you Mary Ellen for showing it to me. I DO know how it works but it is so well executed that I am almost reluctant to explain it. If you want it to stay mysterious, leave this entry now!
The trick is that they have added great red herrings, where you pick the color or the crystal ball or the door while you say your number a couple of times in you mind. This has nothing to do with the trick. The trick is like the classic twenty-one cards in three rows of seven trick. We start here with twenty-five numbers, and the program asks us which of five colors it is. This narrows us down to only five numbers. Then it distracts us while we choose a color which has nothing to do with the trick. Next it asks us which house our number is in, with six numbers in each of five houses.
Remember the first question? Well each house has exactly one number from each of the original color groups (Plus five extras added for smoke-screen.) They are all colored alike in the houses, further concealing the process. Giving this information tells the program which of the first five numbers we chose, and for all intents and purposes the trick has been executed. The rest is just distraction. Any door you open at the end will have your number.
What I find fascinating is that the computer can take advantage of my mind thinking of the numbers as physical entities as if they were printed on cards. For example, I can see my brain thinking, as I pick a door, that only one door can have “18” behind it. The number on the screen, however, is an imaginary electronic construct with no physical reality, in fact it doesn’t even exist until the door opens, so my wonder that the number actually is “18” is my own darned fault. Schrodinger would be proud!
One other thing is that unlike a carbon and water based magician, who might struggle to remember in the first stage which five numbers are red, which are purple, etc. this is the easiest thing to accomplish for a computer program. One could construct a set of cards that would do the manipulations mechanically, but it would be nowhere near as invisible as the computer program.
