Scam School

Hosted by Brian Brushwood. New episodes Wednesdays.

If Harvard offered a PhD in deceit, this would be it. Award-winning magician Brian Brushwood takes viewers on an inside tour of bar tricks, street cons and scams. If you watch carefully, you'll never have to pay for a drink again! Read More

Three caps, one beverage

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 – running time 06:30

This week, we've got a simple puzzle with an impossible-sounding setup.

Cap #1: you can touch, move prod, and play with. No restrictions, except you can’t pick it up (though you won’t need to, to solve the puzzle).

Cap #2: (the right-side up cap in the middle): pretend this guy is totally rooted to the ground. You can touch it and poke it all you want, but it can’t move anywhere.

Cap #3: This guy’s tricky. Imagine he’s radioactive, and some kind of antimatter version of Cap #1. You can’t touch him, and (worse yet) Cap #1 touches him, it’ll cause an antimatter explosion and the world will end.

The Challenge: within those rules, start with the caps in a row of #1-#2-#3, and end with them in the order of #2-#1-#3. In other words, within the above restrictions, get the first cap between the other two.

The Solution: Since you can touch #2, place your finger firmly on top of it. Then use your other finger to slide #1 around, and use it to hit #2. Cap #2 won’t move, but the force of the blow will pass through the bottlecap, sending cap #3 sliding off to the side. Once this is done, simply move #1 into the new gap, and collect yourself a free drink.


Many thanks to our sponsor Coorslight.com


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About the Show

Details
Show Title:
Scam School
Description:
If Harvard offered a PhD in deceit, this would be it. Award-winning magician Brian Brushwood takes viewers on an inside tour of bar tricks, street cons and scams. If you watch carefully, you'll never have to pay for a drink again!
Categories:
Awesome Science, Comedy, How-To & DIY
Launch Date:
Apr 6, 2008
Episodes:
Credits