BBC Radio 4 put out a rather nice 30-minute documentary on the links between maths and magic recently. In Maths and Magic, Jolyon Jenkins explains a couple of simple algebraic ‘mind-reading’ tricks, before talking to various magicians and mathematicians in search of a mathematical trick that doesn’t ‘look’ mathematical. Regular readers of this site will recognise a few of the mathematicians featured in the programme.
I’m now a bit miffed that I managed to miss Jolyon at the big MathsJam in November, because the trick he ends with is the easy version of the de Bruijn trick that David and I made better last year.
Listen: Maths and Magic on BBC Radio 4.
The depiction of everyone at MathsJam being completely baffled by the trick except one guy who’d seen it before is not exactly my recollection of events, but otherwise it was pretty good.
There’s also a mathemagical coda with Jolyon performing a postal card trick on the same day’s More or Less.