James Randi: Scientists Fooled by a Match Box Trick

now you are looking at me and saying oh boy these people pretty dense a no they're people just like you and me except they don't really understand how the real world works you guys understand much more and I hope I do too about how the real world works you don't know how it works but you understand more about how it works and how it can be made to work better but I'm sure you're familiar with Lawrence Livermore labs not too far from here Lawrence Livermore labs has a bunch of physicists all PhDs I'm sure working there and I got a call from one of them a couple of years back say oh boy you're a million-dollar prize it's one gone that's it say goodbye to it said I'll come well a physicist from Israel came over here and brought with him a fella named Ronnie Marcus Ronnie Marcus was doing the irregular act bending spoons and reading the contents to sealed envelopes and good stuff like this all stuff which has been in the magician's repertoire for four generations now and they said we put them through a test and he passed he's the real thing all right this is what fooled him at Lawrence Livermore labs he asked them to get him a box of matches just two boxes this hasn't got many matches left in it to have five or six matches ordinary box matches and of course being scientists they examined it with laser beams scanned it and infrared and ultraviolet weighed it to the millionth of a gram way way down there he's out at each one of the matches very carefully photographed it polarized light the whole thing everything you can imagine complete analysis made sure there were no threads wires magnets nothing unusual about it came from Morton's Steakhouse they got it themselves from Morton's Steakhouse this isn't the original box that's the sacred element oh they probably got it in a glass case with an aeroplane and they gave it to Ronnie Marcus and he said well this is a proof of what we call in the trade psychokinesis and this is what he did wait yeah enough matter you need a certain number of matches there it's not gonna work for you this is what he did he placed him in the back of his hand like this and he said to them puts his head watch the box will actually begin to rise look at this it's rising it's actually rising in the back of the hand and it rose up and then he said and then when I relaxed the psychic power it sinks back down again now I don't know how it's done [Applause] but I'm working on it as a matter of fact this little parlor trick is in a book called Martin Gardner's encyclopedia of impromptu tricks and Martin advertised that she was honored to do tricks like this you don't have to paint your body red and run around naked with a lampshade on your head in order to be an attraction at the next party you see this is a lot simpler and cheaper and doesn't get your wife quite as angry at you at all it's very simple you simply squeeze some of the skin on the back your hand into the box as you close the box and you rise it straight up like that and then it goes all the way down again a miracle of assembiy religious nature isn't that something here for you well that full limit Lawrence lower our oh not all of them no few of them were taken in by the rest of them said they just didn't care much but they should care for more of James Randi and the Educational Foundation make sure you visit rainn.org [Music]

Channel: JamesRandiFoundation

Views: 2,303,238

Rating: 4.8759661 out of 5

Keywords: james, randi, educational, jref, the, amazing, paranormal, investigator

Id: SbwWL5ezA4g

Length: 3min 59sec (239 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 24 2009

Reddit Comments

[u/_BAMBOOZLE_]

This guy is a fucking legend. So many great videos of him on youtube.

[u/Helligator]

If you find stuff like this fascinating I highly recommend "An Honest Liar". Great documentation about James Randi debunking psychics etc.

Edit: Its on Netflix btw.

Second edit: Sorry everybody if it is not on your Netflix... I was under the impression "Netflix Original" meant made by Netflix hence available for every region :(

[u/firthy]

Well, he may be a genius but he must have very saggy skin too. Just tried it for twenty minutes to no avail....

[u/UselessDuckCompany]

I saw him do this trick live at the Toronto premiere of "An honest liar" and it was charming. I love Randi, I backed the movie and he even helped me with a psychic problem a few years ago.

[u/vvsj]

I've seen this. I love James Randi. It bothers me that we're born so far apart that I've only got his past stuff to look at and nothing new to look forward to.

[u/PinsNneedles]

I love James Randi. One of my favorite people.

[u/IvyGold]

As much as I love Randi's takedown of the frauds, I don't believe for a second that anybody at Lawrence Livermore was fooled by this.

[u/Zombie_Jesus_]

A miracle of the semi-religious nature

[u/mrbojenglz]

How do you close the link at the top? It goes under the title bar when I get near the X.