Best simple magic trick I’ve ever seen, blows people’s minds:
Cut out a piece of black paper the shape of the opening of a beer can, lick it and stick it to the lid. From a distance it should look like it’s open. Prick a hole in the side with a pin and drain out a quarter of the beer, enough that you can squeeze the can and bend it. Lay it on its side on a table, with the pinhole pointing up so it doesn’t leak. Now it looks like an open, empty, crushed can. Do all that secretly obviously.
Now ask someone if they want a drink, and point out the “empty” can. Pick it up and cover the pinhole with your finger, then subtly wave the can around as you magically summon more beer. The remaining beer will fizz up and the pressure will cause the can to inflate and uncrush itself. Secretly remove the black paper and hide it. Show them the magically restored lid, crack it open an pour the beer into a glass (so they don’t notice it was partly empty).
What makes it so incredible is you never hid the can from them or did anything tricksy. From their POV, an empty can just refilled itself in front of their eyes.
Edit: Here’s David Blaine doing it for some obvious actors. You will be able to make it more convincing than this. Can’t believe David Blaine was so popular back then lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUTG-MIqU-Q
If you can solve a Rubik’s cube, normal people will think you are a genius. On the other hand, actual cubers correctly assess that I am a dumbass if they see me do it.
Right? I can solve one in a minute to minute and a half. By normal people standards, impressive, by cyber standards I’m laughably slow.
I’m cool with that
To be fair, this is how most skills are in the internet era. It makes it way too easy to feel like you’re not good enough just because it’s so easy to find content from highly talented people.
I’ve learned how to solve in 3 minutes or less since the Reddit blackout protests. I have a friend who said his personal best was a minute and 10 so that’s my target, and my personal best is a minute and a half as of last night.
It’s not 3.1 seconds like the WR but since nearly everyone I have come across in the last couple months can’t solve a cube at all, I’m quite impressive to them.
I sit and solve my cube on my break at work, it’s literally to stop me spending all my time on my phone. It’s a newish job so now everyone thinks I’m quite intelligent, which is nice.
I know exactly one party trick based on mathematical group theory, which I have actually used to impress non-mathematicians at a party.
There’s a concept called the “center” of a “group”, which is the set of operations that commute with every other operation in the group. The center always contains the identity operation of doing nothing. The group of scramblings of a Rubik’s cube happens to contain exactly two elements in its center: the identity, and a move called the “superflip” which takes a little bit of effort to memorize how to do, but it’s not so hard. Much easier than actually solving a scrambled Rubik’s cube. It’s like you do a simple move repeated 4x, and then you do that whole 4x set 3x with some rotations in between. Not terribly complicated. Importantly, once you memorize it it’s not difficult to do just by feel, since it’s a fixed sequence of mechanical motions.
So, the party trick goes like this:
You have a Rubik’s cube that is exactly a superflip away from the solved state. You hand it to an unsuspecting party guest and say “go ahead and make one or two turns” (it’s important to say something like “one or two” because if they do 3 the trick becomes challenging, and if they do 4 or more it might become impossibly difficult unless you’re actually good at solving Rubik’s cubes, which I am not). They take this obviously unsolved cube and make a couple more moves so now it appears even more scrambled.
You take the cube back and do the superflip behind your back, without looking at the cube.
Then you move the cube out from behind your back, and at the same time (trying to be slick about it) you undo the one or two moves remaining before it is solved. Everyone gasps and say “omg he solved it behind his back” (when really you did no such thing).
This works because if S is the superflip and X is the simple moves they did to it, S X S is equal to just X because S commutes with everything. (S is also its own inverse, so that S S = 1.)
Damn, that’s neat. I might have to practice that.
I know exactly one party trick based on mathematical group theory, which I have actually used to impress non-mathematicians at a party.
Clearly, we just need more group-based popular toys. I would definitely buy a monster group cube, and then probably get crushed by it falling over on me (how many generators does that thing need, anyway?).
https://mathoverflow.net/questions/142205/presentation-of-the-monster-group mentions a presentation of the monster with 12 generators.
Creating a physical rotation puzzle that implements the monster group would be quite a task!
Angry elephant. Remove your glass eye, insert it into your foreskin and flop it around while yelling “brrraaaah!”
Most impressive party trick I’ve ever seen.
This one is more of an icebreaker/game and can be fun to do at a party where there is more talking than partying. You need pen and paper or a phone to take notes.
-
Ask each person to come up with a color and 3 adjectives to describe it.
-
Ask each person to come up with an animal and 3 adjectives to describe it.
-
Ask each person to come up with a body of water (can be specific like “Lake Baikal” or non-specific like “ocean”) and 3 adjectives to describe it.
-
Ask each person to imagine themselves in an all-white room with no doors and no windows. Write down 3 adjectives that describe how it makes them feel.
Ok, now:
-
The color and related adjectives is how you see yourself.
-
The animal and related adjectives is how you see other people.
-
Body of water and related adjectives is how you see your sex/love life.
-
The white room is how you see death.
People love this shit. Lots of laughs all around.
Maybe not impressive but it is funny to draw 2 pounts at specific locations on a hand and then “eating” stuff by moving the “middle” thumb joint ud and down so it looks like a mouth.
