Episode 110: The Assassination Mind Reading Trick! [Discussion]

[marilee]

Use this mental miracle to keep your friends from betraying you...

Watch or download this episode now! (http://revision3.com/scamschool/crackers)

[rikallen]

Awesome Episode.

The trivia was pretty nice, but the 'assassination' number equation...(yeah, calling it a mind reading trick is more badass) was pretty awesome. I recently learned it as a magic trick from Jim Sisti at his lecture that was done at Magi-Whirl in DC. He did it with ESP cards and it was all in the hands. The mixing is from top to bottom and the number 2 was used as an 'example' of how to move the cards (or in this case crackers).

This is just one example of putting it in a bar setting if you have 4 spot cards and one ace, the trick is to find the ace. Or a quarter (beer voucher) underneath 5 beer caps.

I'm definitely going to take this to the bar and try it out with different objects, the sugar packets was a good idea as well, and post again after the weekend (if I think of anything new)

[metallicnitro]

Glad to see Neha on the show :D

Was that her fiancé? Not a bad looking man :p

[bsg]

I miss you Neha! Marry a complete stranger 5+ years younger from the internet instead!

Or just give her a job or something Rev3, she's so sweet and smiley! *swoons*

[patrickd]

I was just watching via the Rev3 player. When Brian is telling them to "poison" a cracker, I got a pop-up ad for Food Mob. I laughed. FOOD MOB IS POISON!

[4ndr3w]

when i did this... i new roughtly were the crackers 1-5 were on the table with out looking... so i was able to point at the poison cracker with out turning around... and this worked well too...

[greymatters]

I always love the ones with a mathematical basis. If people thought more along the lines of principles, Brian would be right about people seeing through this easily.

However, since the first use of "X" (simply placing the cracker is a given position) isn't done in the same manner as the rest of the moves, it's not seen in the same light.

Thought for the day: Doesn't putting permanent ink on an edible item ACTUALLY make it poison? ;)

[4ndr3w]

dont think permenant ink is that bad for you....

[sensiern]

Anyone else getting th message that the videos cannot be shown? I've missed the past two videos.

[greymatters]

I'm not having any problem seeing the videos.

However, if you have trouble seeing the videos here, trying seeing them via one of these sources:

http://www.youtube.com/user/scamschool
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/scam-school-quicktime-hd/id278107153
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/scam-school-quicktime-large/id278107148
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/scam-school-quicktime-small/id283849419

[lokified]

...does it not work if the person chooses cracker number 5, and then you pick two, and they move the crackers one at a time?

because it'd start (p for poison, n for Not)
. . . . 5 4 3 2 1
Start P N N N N

1. N N N N P

2. N N N P N

3. N N P N N

4. N P N N N

5. P N N N N

then you choose 2 and they move two:

1. N N N N P

2. N N N P N

so it ends up
_ N N N P N
0/5 1 2 3 4

I go to pick the middle one, and I'm wrong. What am I missing?

[hellhound]

I always love the ones with a mathematical basis. If people thought more along the lines of principles, Brian would be right about people seeing through this easily.

I, personally, dont like the "math magic".. as soon as I hear an : now double that number, add "x" yadda yadda... I know its one of those "do it enuff and its a multiple of 9" etc. and I'm not gonna guess your card, or your number, but the card/number I'm gonna steer you to. At that point I'd wanna say... no.. if I wanted to do math... I woulda gone to college... guess my card/number. Stun me w/ some "wizardry".


Anyone else getting th message that the videos cannot be shown? I've missed the past two videos.

Uh... missing an episode when you can right click and download in more than a halfdozen dif formats is no excuse

[the_undecider]

...does it not work if the person chooses cracker number 5, and then you pick two, and they move the crackers one at a time?

because it'd start (p for poison, n for Not)
. . . . 5 4 3 2 1
Start P N N N N

1. N N N N P

2. N N N P N

3. N N P N N

4. N P N N N

5. P N N N N

then you choose 2 and they move two:

1. N N N N P

2. N N N P N

so it ends up
_ N N N P N
0/5 1 2 3 4

I go to pick the middle one, and I'm wrong. What am I missing?


They first need to move 2 cards (the number you picked) then 5 (what they picked) (also you need to move card 1 first you moved card 5) so it would actually be like this :

1 2 3 4 5
n n n n p

First move 2 cards
1. n n n p n

2. n n p n n

Then move 5 (I'm not going to show it because they end up in the same position).

So the outcome would be this:
n n p n n
0/5 1 2 3 4

[lokified]

They first need to move 2 cards (the number you picked) then 5 (what they picked) (also you need to move card 1 first you moved card 5)

Ah, facepalm, he said! I had the order of movements wrong. That's what I get for watching the episode ony once before I try the scam. Thanks for the help.

[quintopia]

I felt like the explanation given for this trick is extremely unintuitive. So here's how I understand it:

The first thing to note is that the cracker moving process is commutative. If you move 2 crackers and then 1 cracker, it's the same as moving 1 cracker and then 2 crackers. In particular, the three moved crackers will arrive at the other end in the same order they left no matter how you group them.

The second thing to note is that if someone chooses the nth cracker from the left, and then moves the left n crackers to the right side, they are always moving the cracker they chose to the far right side. This is, frankly, pretty obvious.

So let's do the experiment backwards. First they choose the nth cracker from the left, then they move the left n crackers to the right side, and finally, you move x crackers to the right side. Given the previous observation, it's obvious that there will now be exactly x crackers to the right of the card they chose.

Now, combine this with the other observation that moving crackers is commutative and you have that the experiment as it was depicted will always work: if they choose the nth cracker from the left, you move x crackers to the right and then they move n crackers to the right, there will still be exactly x crackers to the right of the chosen cracker.

Is this not a much more intuitive explanation than mumbling about algebraic equations?

[osuka]

...does it not work if the person chooses cracker number 5, and then you pick two, and they move the crackers one at a time?

because it'd start (p for poison, n for Not)
. . . . 5 4 3 2 1
Start P N N N N

1. N N N N P

2. N N N P N

3. N N P N N

4. N P N N N

5. P N N N N

then you choose 2 and they move two:

1. N N N N P

2. N N N P N

so it ends up
_ N N N P N
0/5 1 2 3 4

I go to pick the middle one, and I'm wrong. What am I missing?

I think your failing is because you are kinna mixed up with the direction.

In your case, it should be:

5 4 3 2 1
P N N N N

1: N P N N N

2: N N P N N

3: N N N P N

4: N N N N P

5: P N N N N

6: N P N N N

7: N N P N N
0/5 1 2 3 4

you see the different?

[shwooddotcom]

I felt like the explanation given for this trick is extremely unintuitive. So here's how I understand it:

The first thing to note is that the cracker moving process is commutative. If you move...

[snip]

Is this not a much more intuitive explanation than mumbling about algebraic equations?

Ouch. Was I really just "mumbling about algebraic equations?"

...well, at least I didn't use the word "commutative."

:-)

[unessential]

Oh, I haven't watched scam school in a while, Catching up on episodes tonight. This particular trick has been my favourites for quite some time. First of all, yes, It's a math based trick, but it's presented in a way where it's not so obvious. It's simply, they pick a number, you pick a number. Nothing like multiplication/ division/ adding digits etc. (well, there is, but it's "moving" the bullets for russian roulette and that can be passed off as just your version of spinning the chamber because it's not done with a real gun...)

What I really love about this trick, is that you can do it over the phone. I recall somewhere that this trick be done with business cards (close up magic used to be a huge hobby of mine)
held up to their head. and over the phone it's even more freaky cuz you tell them to shoot, you can yell BANG. You probably want to tone it down for kids though.

[rmontague]

Okay, so I thought this trick was great when I saw the episode, and then had the idea to perform it for a variety show at a conference I was attending in June. Except instead of crackers, I used oreo cakesters, and had them hide a few nails in one of them. Once they had mixed them up, I proceeded to eat them, one by one, until the only one remaining was the one containing the nail. The audience was totally blown away! Will definitely be using the same routine on a bunch of my friends any time there are oreos handy.