http://www.ellusionist.com/magic_tricks_on...s_theShaman.htm

This is amazing. How on earth does it work?

It worked the first 2 times...not the next 2

So far it's been right every time for me, and I must have tried it about a dozen times!

Has anyone noticed that you always get a answer that's a multiple of 9? And every number that's is a multiple of 9 has the same symbol? (you'll notice which symbol is on 9 changes everytime you click on the sphere, but is always the one in the sphere)
Can anyone get a different symbol to the one on 9?

Spot on .

Let's look at the nine-times table:

9
18
27
36
45
etc. etc.

Now let's compare it, side by side, to the ten-times table:

10 9
20 18
30 27
40 36
50 45

We can see from this that to get the number in the nine-times table, we take the first digit of the number in the ten-times table away from it, i.e:

10 - 1 = 9
20 - 2 = 18
30 - 3 = 27
40 - 4 = 36
50 - 5 = 45

Now, look at their rules, Pick a number, we'll use 37.

They say to take away 3 + 7 = 10 from it; how about we take away the 7 then take away the 3, it's the same thing.

37 - 7 = 30
30 - 3 = 27

This is the important bit: each number has it's second digit taken away, leaving a multiple of 10 (31 - 1 = 30, 32 - 2 = 32, 33 - 3 = 33 etc. etc). Then, the tens figure is taken away which, as we saw earlier, always leaves a multiple of 9.

As snuglivixen noticed, if you look in their table of symbols the symbols at the numbers in the nine-times table are the same and the crystal ball displays that one.

too tired to understand that at all!!

Yeah, I noticed that you always seem to get 9 or it's multiple - funnily enough, all sharing the same symbol. I think that's the point of the experiment, you'll always get that moon and star symbol, so the crystal will always be right - just another mathematical trick I think, not really an illusion.

~Wobby~

Yeah, what YAP said was right - you seem to know an awful lot about Maths, did you take it for A Levels or Uni?

~Wobby~

It's a simple arithmetic trick. Useful for getting a free pint out of your mates at the pub.

As is the following:

Take an ordinary calculator and type a three-digit number into it.
Type the number again so that you now have a six-digit number.
Divide by 7 - don't worry about the remainder, because there won't be one
Divide by 11 - don't worry about the remainder, because there won't be one
Divide by 13 - don't worry about the remainder, because there won't be one
Take away the three-digit number you started with, and don't worry about the remainder because there won't be one.

Dead easy - provided you can work a calculator.

Cheers

Katyjay

Love that one! I sat down with a friend and worked it once. It works because 7x11x13 = 1001 and of course if you multiply any 3 digit number by 1001 (eg. 457) it appears to double up (eg. 457457). So of course it works for dividing as well.

Spot on, Boo Radley. As I said, a good way of getting a free pint out of your mates at the pub

Ah, I see now!

Thank you Snuglivixen and YAP for your explanations. I struggled a bit to follow what you were saying because the part of my brain that can make sense of numbers is missing(!), but I sort of get the gist of it. I'd never have worked it out on my own. Because the "chosen" symbol appears randomly against other numbers too I would probably never have spotted the pattern visually either (if that makes sense?)

(I haven't had a go at KatyJay's pub trick yet because Nils has taken the calculator to school, but I shall have a go at amazing him with it when he gets home!)

cheers,

Amber
x

PS. Oh, so it's not really magic after all!

We did this in maths once, although I got horribly confused.

The only thing I've noticed is that if the thing really WAS psychic, if we didnt do the addy up, take away thing and just picked any random number from that list, it would still come up with our symbol but its not psychic and so 'any randojm number' doesnt work, because they arent multiples of nine...

Yeah that's what I noticed...all my answers were either 36 or 18 or 27 or something so I thought it must have something to do with 9... it's like that thing when you say pick a number from 1-10...times it by 9... add the digits together... multiply by 2... take away 8 and the answer will always be 10...

yeah, I've been on that site a few times before.... the first time I was really spooked though, it's quite creepy when you first try it!!!!! Then after the 6th time or so, i realised it must be something to do with the 9 times table. still fun to show people who've never seen it before, though!!!