Another dice trick: 3 dice, they're normal D6s. I'm gonna turn away and ask you to handle the dice, is that okay? So I'm gonna face the lovely ladder here; can you - you can roll them if you want to make sure it's random - but can you then stack the dice one on top of the other? (Brady: Okay.) I want to watch this, because I suspect you're doing this with just one hand and that's quite- maybe impressive. Are they stacked?
- (Not yet hang on.) Alright. Underestimated
how difficult this was? (It's not easy when you're holding a) (camera but-)
- I'm sure you're up to the task. (I have stacked them.)
- Okay, can you please just carefully pick up the top dice and look at the two faces that are touching and add them together.
- (Okay, the two faces) (touching is that-)
- Add them together, yeah. (And that. I've added them together.) Okay, can you do the same
with the next pair of faces that are touching? So pick up the top two dice and and add the two faces that are touching.
- (Okay so we've) (got that and that, okay.)
- And then you can pick up the whole stack and check the bottom number and add that onto your total as well. (Okay yep.)
- Okay, are you done? You've got that running total in your head? Oh sorry - can you cover up the pile now. I think we got a hat ready to do this. (Available now) So can I turn around now?
- (Yep.) So you have a number in your head, and not only were the faces hidden on the stack they were also covered by a hat now. There's no way I can know the number you're thinking of. But it is 19. (Well it is 19, yeah.)
- Good. Dice tricks are silly because everyone knows there's a trick, like dice are not tricky objects, these are not loaded die and it wouldn't help me if they were. So like always the way with magic tricks, if you want to work them out try and repeat them. But this time I'll deal with the the theatre of me looking away, I'm just going to stay looking. So I'd be looking away, I wouldn't see any of this stuff, and I'm still looking away and you check the two touching faces here, there's a 5 and a 5 so you've got 10, good; and then there's a 6 so 16 all together and you get the last one - get that right sorry- (I did better with the camera!)
- Yeah it's- I should just started- and the bottom one is 3. What are we on? 19, 19 again. So is it always 19? (Yeah) Let's try one more. I'll do it all, let's see if I can get better at this. So rolling them randomly, stacking them, there's a 4 and a 1 - 5. Plus 11, that's 16. And the bottom one: 2 Makes? (17.)
- Yeah, so it's not always 19. But we've done that wrong.
It is not always 19 but we can't add up for some reason. Let's check this, I'm curious now. 4 and 1 is 5; plus 11, 16. Plus 2, 18.
- (That's 17.) 18. 16 plus 2 is 18. (18?) (What's going on?)
- We are both- (What's going on?)
- ...worse at mental arithmetic than- well I think I'm pretty bad anyway. There's one bit of this trick which is more magic tricksy than some of the others that I've been doing. I have to do one clever thing, and then lots of stuff which is just not clever at all. You- we've been doing some other dice tricks today - there's a famous fact about D6s which I know you know, tell me about that.
- (That opposite sides add to 7.) Do you think that helps here? (Yes I do.)
- But we're looking at touching faces, not opposite faces right?
- (But four) (of our faces are opposite to each other,) (so we're guaranteed to get to 14.) Right, because two of the
7s are going to come out yeah? So the one that doesn't get paired is that one, the top one. Yeah, so we're at 14 plus that. Is there any way I could know? (Well if you saw the top number) (you'll know what's-)
- Did I see the top number? (Well you shouldn't have!) Do you remember what happened when I asked you to put the hat on? (No.)
- I turned around and said, can you put the cap on the pile please?
You got that running total in your head? Oh sorry can you cover up the pile now. Oh sorry... Now that- I made that look like I'd forgotten to ask you but I needed to do that. Because once I see the top thing, what do I do then? (Yeah you- okay yes, you know what the) (other one is and add that to 14.)
- Yeah or I just take- because 21 would be the the three 7s; I just take that number off 21 and I'm done. This is a cheat's trick. I engineer some way of glimpsing the top number and the rest is- it's not always gonna be the same number, so it's repeatable, and the rest is just the 7s like you're working before. But I have to do the the slightly clunky bit, I need to glimpse that top number by hook or by crook, I've got to glimpse it. Whether I turn around by accident. If I see the 3, I do 21 take 3 and I get 18. And if I see the 6, what's the stack total going to be? Or rather, when I do the trick with them? (So if you see a 6 on top, 15 would be) (the answer.)
- Yeah and we'll check, right? So 1 and 2 is 3, another 6 makes 9, and a 6, 15. It's just the 7s property, but again it's slightly concealed, this one needs a little bit more work to do that 'oh I've glimpsed the 6 but I didn't want to make it too obvious' but like like all magic tricks there's a mixture of sort of rational- like I've got to engineer something quite carefully and I've also got to misdirect, I've got to sort of take the attention away. I find it interesting to look at magic tricks because I'm a teacher and it's like literally the opposite of my job. Teaching is like explaining clearly so everything is laid out, and magic is completely mystify it so everything is not laid out. What I find interesting is that they can work together, because by doing a magic trick you provoke curiosity and intrigue and that can motivate the sort of- the clear laying out. There's a there's a funny paradox in the world of teaching but anyway, that's a three dice stack dice trick. This was the third in a trilogy of dice trick videos that we recorded with Ben. Links to the other two can be found on the screen or down in the description. The reveal of a magic trick is important, the like the punch line is like how you cause the wonder, so it matters about getting it right.
Now I just I just said the number, which kind of works, but maybe there's more drama if you can find another way to reveal it. So if I know that I've seen the 2 then I don't worry anymore, like it's covered and I sort of like make the most of it being covered, I can't see anything of it. But I'm not even going to tell you the number, I'm just going to say 'it'd be strange if I knew what number you were going to get in advance wouldn't it? It would be strange and almost impossible for me to just pull these things out.' I mean that's- it'd be
like interesting wouldn't it to be to know that there'll be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
16, 17, 18, 19 which is your number. (Oh incredible! Amazing!) And I don't- I don't know if this is a better reveal or not, it certainly feels- what I've done is I've put 21 coins in my pocket and the two that I spotted on top I left in my pocket. Really easy to do, whatever number I see there I leave that many in my pocket, I can count through and just throw them on the table. It's kind of like a nonchalant feeling, you can even throw it on the table and say I bet you the coins is the same as your total and walk away to the bar and just wait there until they're impressed enough to
come and buy the drink. (Not going to buy many drinks
with 21 pence!) True, we can used to use pounds next time and unless beer has gone up a lot I should get something out of it. (Then of course you've always got to have) (three dice and 21 coins in your) (pocket just in case.) Is that unusual?
