The Math behind Magic

Presentation by: Kristen Berish

The Art of shuffling cards

The Perfect Shuffle of a deck of 2n cards

Cutting the deck exactly in half and then riffling them so that they alternate
perfectly.

Let the deck be labeled (1,2,,n-1,n,.2n-1, 2n)

The in-shuffle

Leaves the original card second from the top

After an in-shuffle, the order is (n+1, 1,, 2n, n)

In-shuffling an even number n of cards n times results in the

original card order.

Example: Deck of 52 cards will takes 52 shuffles to return to the

original

The out-shuffle

Leaving the original card on top

After an out-shuffle, the order is (1, n+1, 2,n, 2n)

Out-shuffling an even number n cards n-2 times when n-1 is

prime results in the original order.

For any n-1 that is not prime, amount of shuffles, r, can be

written as

2 =1(mod n1)

Example: Deck of 52 cards.

28=1(mod51) -> 8 perfect

shuffles
Try it out!
How many in-shuffles would it take to return a deck of 40 cards to its
original order? How many out-shuffles?

What do magicians use this for?

If a magician wants to bring the top card to a given position in the deck
o Suppose he wants to move the top card to the 13th position
Step 1: Subtract 1 from the position wanted --- 131= 12
Step 2: represent that number in binary
12 = 1100
Step 3: let 0 = out-shuffle and 1= in-shuffle

1100 = in, in, out, out

The Three Scoop Miracle

The magician hands about a quarter of a deck of cards to a spectator, and ask her to
shuffle freely. Taking those cards back, and mixing them further the magician asks
the spectator what her favorite ice cream flavor is. Lets suppose she says,
Chocolate. Dealing from the packet to the table, the magician puts down one card
for each letter of chocolate, then scoop those up with one hand and drops the
remainder on top. This process is repeated twice more, for a total of three times. The
magician then now ask her to press down hard on the top card of the packet on the
table, requesting that it be miraculously turned a specific card, which in this case
well say the Four of Diamonds. When the card is turned over, it is seen by all to be
the desired card. Congratulate the spectator on a job well done.

There are two secrets here:

1.

A key relationship between the number of letters in the word being spelled out
and the size of the quarter deck being used
a. The size of the deck must be at least as big as the kind of ice cream the
person chooses but no larger than twice that number
2. The you must know the identity of the bottom card at the start of the spelling
and dealing of the cards
The question now is how can the magician get that bottom card to the top of the
deck??

Bottom to Top Principle

The original bottom card of the packet ends up on top after three such reverse transferrings
of k cards from n, provided that k n/2
Low-Down Deal Packet Separation Principle
If k cards are reverse transferred from the top to the bottom of a packet of size n, and k
n/2, then the top and bottom halves switch places, subject to some internal reordering.
Patterns to be aware of when using the two above principles:

If the deck has an odd number of cards, then the middle card will always be fixed.
If the deck has an even number, the middle two cards will switch places.

This reveals a symmetry in a deck of cards:

When reverse transferring the same number of cards over and over, there are three
sections of the deck to keep an eye on.
First, note that since k n /2 , we have 2k n = k (n k) 0
Let n = k + (n k)
= [(n k)+(k (n k))] + (n k)
= (n k) + (2k n)+ (n k)
Packet of n cards naturally breaks symmetrically into three pieces T,M,B, (top,
middle, and bottom) of sizes nk, 2k n, nk.
Example:

n = 13, and k = 8, and therefore the deck is ordered: {1, 2,..., 12, 13}
T = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
M = {6, 7, 8}
B = {9, 10, 11, 12, 13}
Counting out eight cards results in: {9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1}, that is B
followed by M reversed followed by T reversed. The middle card, in position 7 in this case,
remains fixed throughout.

This phenomena is demonstrated in the picture below:

Things are meant to be trick

You claim that some things are simply meant to be, and set about proving it. You
need your friend to help you create a random target number. But before she even
picks the number, you predict that the total is 1089.
To prove you are right, you get your friend to secretly write down any three-digit
number. The digits must all be different and the biggest digit must be at the front.
Then you get her to reverse the selected number and write it underneath the first
number. She should then subtract this lower number from their first number. Finally,
have her write their answer backwards and add this new reversed number to her
answer. After all of this, you now have a random number even your friend couldnt
have predicted in advance. But as predicted before, the final number is 1089!

Try it yourself! If you chose a three digit number, using the process above, will your final
answer be 1089?

Proof that it will always work:

Let ABC represent the chosen number, where A is greater than B and C:
Subtracting: ABC CBA

Since we know A>C we cant subtract without borrowing

Lets try this instead:

If you add 100 to ABC and then take away 100, then youre still left with the same number,
ABC.
Representing adding 100 as 10+90 and subtraction of 100 as A-1:
ABC = (A-1) (B+9) (C+10)

We now have:

(A-1) (B+9) (C+10)

(A-1)-C

(B+9)-B

(C+10)-A

(B+9)-B

18

A______
(C+10)-A
(A-1)-C___
9

Therefore, A=9 , B=18, C=9. Written in the form ABC: 1089

Sources:

Magical Mathematics: The mathematical ideas that animate great magic

tricks
By Persi Diaconis and Ron Graham
Mathematical Card Magic Fifty-Two New Effects
By Colm Mulcahy
http://www.mathematicalmagic.com/docs/mathsmagic_full.pdf