Customer Reviews

Mathematics, Magic and Mystery (Dover Recreational Math)

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This book is very nice. It teaches you how to do magic with any houshold items. There are 2 chapters with cards too. NONE of the tricks described here use any sort of slight of hand. It is 100% mathematical tricks than ANYONE can do. And they are all nice cloe-up tricks which are the type of tricks which are most baffling. Martin Garder, the author of this book is a very talented writer. He wrote many books on mathematics and science. This is a great book and I recomend EVERYONE should get it even if they are not into magic that much.

The reason why we use the phrases "magic trick" and "card trick" is because we know that there is no such thing as magic. The magician is executing a very specific algorithm that leads from the starting point to the desired conclusion. In this book, Gardner explains some of the algorithms in areas such as card tricks, mental magic and other common feats of legerdemain.
The titles of the chapters are:

*) Tricks with cards part I
*) Tricks with cards part II
*) From Gergonne to Gargantua - more tricks with cards
*) Magic with common objects - the objects are items such as dice and dominoes
*) Topological tomfoolery - tricks with items such as ropes, handkerchiefs and vests
*) Tricks with special equipment
*) Geometrical vanishes part I
*) Geometrical vanishes part II
*) Magic with pure numbers - rapid computation or number guessing tricks

Some people don't want to know how things are done because it spoils the fun for them. Since Gardner explains all of the tricks in complete detail, if you read this book then you will know how to do them yourself. Therefore, you should only pick it up if you can handle the knowledge of how these tricks are performed.