The Physics of Magic And Vice-Versa

A traveling road show

Dave Wall, City College of San Francisco

Purpose

• Physics is GOOD for you! 

• Magic, the ancestor of science, differs from physics in several respects. The relationship between the two will be explored. 

• While no great secrets of magic will be revealed, some underlying physical principles will be explained. 
  If time allows, a bit of magic will be taught. 
   

• Magic is GOOD for you! 

Program
 

• Maxwell' equations patter for the Linking Rings 

• Pepper's ghost and other virtual images 

• Fluid statics in a milk bottle 

• The Big Zepf Zapper

• Other physics demonstrations gone wrong 

• Vector ropes 

• The Professor's Nightmare 
   

Background

Some years ago, when my daughter was in pre-school, I found that the few coin tricks I had learned as a teenager were invaluable for distracting small children. I therefore started attending magic club meetings, going to magician's lectures, and otherwise studying magic. Not to do in physics class -- that was an accident -- but to survive as a preschool parent. 

Then I thought of this great title for a contributed paper at a physics meeting and had to assemble a talk to fit the title. When I got to the physics meeting, I found they had put me in a large hall and it was filled with people expecting to be entertained -- whoops, I mean informed. Much to my relief, the things went splendidly since I was well prepared, having gotten a great deal of help from my magician friends. 

One of my friends in Ring 38 of the International Brotherhood of Magicians was on the Board of Regents for the University of California. He got the idea of using the title of my talk as basis to put together a fundraiser for the Lawrence Hall of Science. Much of the present traveling road show is based on the work we did in assembling that show. We actually filled the auditorium at the Lawrence Hall of Science at $200 a seat. There were six Nobel laureates in the audience and I had the honor of sharing the stage with my friend, with Dr. Albo, who has the world's largest collection of
magic paraphernalia, and the famous Professor Harvey White of the U.C. Berkeley Physics Department. Opening and closing the show we had a professional magician, Dr. Harry Lovecraft, and I must say that the show was well received.

In recent years, I have been invited as a seminar speaker at physics clubs and the like. At the summer AAPT meeting in Denver, I got the idea of using this traveling road show as part of my sabbatical project in which I am traveling about vidiotaping everyone's favorite physics demonstrations.  

I suggested to some of my friends that I would come to their
college, do Physics of Magic, stay at their house and eat their food. Several dozen of my old friends have taken me up on this offer and I have made a number of great new friends as well.  

In the Summer of 1998, I was honored to do the evening show at the AAPT meeting in Lincoln. Folks told me it was great, and I choose to believe them. I chose a volunteer who seemed intent on exposing the rings, but I seemed to handle him okay, and the Van de Graff wasn't putting out much current. Still it felt good and was well received. 
In January of 1999, I was invited to share in producing a Physics of Magic session for the winter meeting along with my friend Tom Zepf at Creighton University, and Bob Friedhoffer, a New York pro. For that show, we presented a Sphinx Illusion. 

In June of 1999, I was invited to the Netherlands to do my show at the University of Groningen. What a wonderful trip that turned out to be. 

In the winter meeting of 2000, several of my magician friends will collaborated on a pair of workshops on the use of magic in teaching physics. 

In the Spring of 2001, I was invited by the APS, for the Seattle March Meeting, to speak on Adding a little magic to your demos  and to the North Carolina section of the AAPT for show and teaching.  
 

In the Fall of 2001, I was invited by the Arkansas-Oklahoma-Kansas  section of the AAPT to do a show and rope workshop for their fall meeting.