MAGIC TRICKS - GUESS A NUMBER FROM 1 TO 63

Joyce

Do you want to be the life of the party?
Then print this game and practice first.

The Magic Cards

Instructions:

Think of a number from 1 to 63.
Find which of these cards your number appears on and hand them over.
The magician will sum the numbers in the top left corner of the cards you give him…
and he will guess exactly the number you thought of!

You can also do the opposite: have them take and keep the cards where the number is, take the others yourself, and subtract that sum from 63… the number you are looking for will appear.

Practice a bit and you will get some astonished faces. And don't reveal the trick.
Look him in the eyes as you do the calculation, tell him to think of the number and… voilà, you've already amazed him.

If you repeat it, tell them to stop thinking of multiple numbers, as it confuses you… 😄

A bit of culture:

• The mathematical basis: It was Gottfried Leibniz who, in 1703, formally documented the binary system (the language of 0s and 1s), which is the "invisible rule" that organizes the numbers on the cards.
• The principle of the trick: The French mathematician Joseph-Diez Gergonne developed principles of "stacks" and mathematical ordering in the 19th century that allowed for the creation of tricks where, by only knowing the position of an element, one can deduce what it is.
• The popularization: The popularizer Martin Gardner was the one who included this game in his books on mathematical magic (such as Mathematics, Magic and Mystery in 1956), making it an educational standard for teaching computing and binary in schools

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