• DOI:10.1080/09332480.2013.794620
• Corpus ID: 60760932

Magical Mathematics: The Mathematical Ideas That Animate Great Magic Tricks

@article{Robert2013MagicalMT,
  title={Magical Mathematics: The Mathematical Ideas That Animate Great Magic Tricks},
  author={Christian P. Robert},
  journal={CHANCE},
  year={2013},
  volume={26},
  pages={50 - 51}
}

• C. Robert
• Published 16 April 2013
• Art
• CHANCE

When learning that Persi Diaconis and Ron Graham had co-authored a book on the mathematics of magic, I immediately asked Princeton University Press for a copy! Even though I am not at all interested in card tricks. Nor in juggling. (The title is a wee confusing [to a non-native speaker like me], as it sounds like focusing on the magics [sic] of mathematics, rather than the converse.) Once the book arrived, I showed it to my wife, and she started reading it right away, going over the first chapter prior to returning it reluctantly. Later, on a plane trip between Phoenix and Minneapolis, I happened to sit next to a professional magician, The Amazing Hondo!, who started chatting with me about his work and some of his tricks. He knew about Persi as a magician, but was surprised he was equally famous among mathematicians and had not heard about the book. Hondo showed me a few (impressive) sleights of hand and explained a nice mathematical trick (based on creating apparent randomness while always extracting the same number of cards from the pile). I have had a few other occurrences of how the book attracted the attention of non-magicians and/ or non-mathematicians; this illustrates its appeal for a wide audience. Of course, once one starts reading the book, the attraction is increased. It is a very entertaining book, written at a fairly easy mathematical level. It is also beautiful, with wide margins, fancy (but readable) fonts, photographs, and graphs or tables in the margins.