Mathematical Magic

A sneak peak into the world of Magic and Maths

Meet the magicians and find out what mathematical magic they have in store...Peter McOwan is Professor of Computer Science in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary, University of London and a lifelong amateur magician.

Matt Parker is Mathematics Outreach Coordinator for the School of Mathematical Sciences at Queen Mary, University of London, a fully trained stand up comedian and was previously a maths school teacher.

Jason Davison is a semi-professional magician and a maths school teacher.

Using the magic of algebra Professor McOwan shows us how we can predict what cards a person may be holding. This may come in useful to poker fans!

How are these Jokers able to predict a punters choices? Jason Davison issues a challenge in this demonstration of a card classic.

How can we influence the roll of a die? Matt Parker demonstrates and explains how to win using Non-Transitive Dice.

How can you count something you can't see? Matt Parker performs this trick to show how hidden information can influence our decisions

Want to manipulate a card deck to place cards in any position? Here the Mathematical Magic team demonstrate the Faro shuffle and explain its applications in the world of Computer Science.

Can we influence people's decisions thought the power of the mind? Peter McOwan uses his "ESP cards" to control a subject's thoughts using clock arithmetic.

But why 27 cards? Matt Parker shows us how to astound an audience by using base 3 numbers. A similar method can also be used to efficiently move data in computer memory.

How can you cheat a calculator? Matt Parker demonstrates and explains how to predict a random number using this simple factoring trick.