• Question: Do You Think There's Any Science Behind Magic ?

    Asked by gonegaming to Ben, Dave, Ed, Sam, Susana on 18 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Benjamin Hall

      Benjamin Hall answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      Absolutely!

      All magic is done by distracting the audience or cleverly disguising how you’re doing something.

      Let’s take Derren Brown as an example, he’s nothing more than a fantastic psychologist. When you go to one of his shows, as soon as you arrive at the theatre he uses a technique called ‘autosuggestion’. He’ll leave objects, signs and messages around the toilets, food outlets, at the door, along the corridors, around your seats and during the show. You sub-consciously take these messages on board and he knows people do, he uses this to do the things he does on stage.

    • Photo: David Briggs

      David Briggs answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      Yup.

      Like Ben says – take a look at Derren Brown, or the work of Prof Richard Wiseman.

      Magic is just the science of illusions and deception.

    • Photo: Sam Horrell

      Sam Horrell answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      Some might say that magic is simply science we don’t understand. A long time ago before we knew what was actually happening in our bodies or in the environment things like the healing effects of some plants was put down to magic.

    • Photo: Susana Teixeira

      Susana Teixeira answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Yes, of course! Magic is just an illusion, and Science can assist it very well. You can find a few fun tricks here, that will also teach a bit of Science:
      http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistrymagic/tp/sciencemagictricks.htm

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