Assignment 1
(Due Sunday August 26th at midnight)
This weekend I would like you to write about math and magic. What are your ideas about math? What are your ideas about magic? Do you think they are the same or different? Are they related or completely different to you? Are there times we should force them to be the same? Describe a magic trick you have seen that impressed you. Was there any mathematics behind it?
Please post your blog assignment as a separate post.
This weekend I would like you to write about math and magic. What are your ideas about math? What are your ideas about magic? Do you think they are the same or different? Are they related or completely different to you? Are there times we should force them to be the same? Describe a magic trick you have seen that impressed you. Was there any mathematics behind it?
Please post your blog assignment as a separate post.
When I think of math I usually think of people working on theorems or figuring out algebra problems. When I think of magic I usually think of a magician and movies or performers I have seen on America's got talent or Vegas. Honestly, when I saw the books for the course I was surprised. However, now thinking about how these two topics relate it makes sense to me that they can be intertwined especially for card tricks. For games like black jack math can be used to count cards in favor of the player so it makes sense to me that you can stack a deck mathematically in order to do a magic trick in the magicians favor. A magic trick that comes to the top of my head is the cutting the boxes while someone is inside. I could see mathematics being involved in this trick. Using fractions to divide up the boxes in order to cut accurately and place the person inside would be a way to use math in that situation.
ReplyDeleteBefore I started taking higher level math classes, I always thought of mathematicians as doing computations constantly. Now, however, I see the importance of being able to articulately prove theorems. This is something I hadn’t thought much about before. When I think of magic, I usually think of magicians on stage wearing flashy costumes and preforming tricks. I think that math and magic have both similarities and differences. In some tricks that are mostly based on illusions and distracting the audience, math does not seem to be involved. In card tricks, however, it seems more obvious that math is used in some way. I think there are instances when math and magic are forced to go hand in hand. Even in simple situations like cutting a deck of cards in such a way that allows for a trick to be performed, math is the underlying force. A magic trick that has impressed me was a trick in which members of the audience came on stage and were given flashlights to hold and move around. Then, the assistant put up a curtain so that you couldn’t see the people behind the curtain, but you could see the flashlights moving around. Then, the all stage lights went off in a flash and within a few seconds, they were turned back on and the audience members holding the flashlights were standing in the back of the auditorium. I think this trick had less to do with math, and more to do with light illusions.
ReplyDeleteAssignment 1 (8/25)
ReplyDeleteMath is to me, the language of change. It describes a Universe that is constantly in flux, even if we may not have a full grasp of the grammar as of yet. As someone who eats the same thing every day and wears the same clothes, there is something appealing about staring Into the Void.
As for magic, I honestly have no strong opinions on it. It is a subversion of expectations either by way of distraction or obfuscation. I don’t really seek out magic shows or magicians because while I think the process of the trick is interesting, that is often held tightly in secret.
All of that said, there is clearly a link between math and magic. Take for instance a levitation trick. These are just some clever exploitation of physics and force balancing so the subject appears to be floating unassisted. Like we have seen in class, the shuffling of a deck can also be mapped mathematically. To say that they don’t have at least some link would be dishonest and the position of an overtly contrarian skeptic.
Wow this way more pretentious than I intended