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In this mathematics seminar, the magician reveals his secrets
In Math, Magic, Games & Puzzles, longtime Northeast math teacher Stanley Eigen discovers the numerical principles behind popular card tricks and helps his specialty students teach them to children.
![Person performing a card trick with a purple overlay on the photo.](https://i0.wp.com/news.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/091123_MM_card_stock_1400.jpg?resize=1400%2C932&ssl=1)
Going to an honors-level math seminar on Northeastern University’s Boston campus in early September, you might expect to see graphing calculators, thick textbooks, algebraic equations and parabolas scratched out on a marker board – trappings of the serious work that top STEM-focused students at a world-class research university are undertaking.
Instead, in Stanley Eigen’s classroom, you’ll see a flurry of shuffled playing cards; hear a faint cacophony of impressed chatter. You’ll watch a grainy YouTube video of the famous 90s magician David Copperfieldwhich, between corny jokes and a terrible moonwalk, correctly identifies the seemingly random card you, the amateur spectator, drew from your deck.
This course is HONR 1310: Mathematics, Magic, Games and Puzzles, for first-year students in Northeastern’s Honors program. It covers the mathematical concepts behind well-known card tricks and puzzles, but the most important takeaway is how to communicate them effectively. This is a service-learning course, and students must perfect the tricks in order to teach them to elementary and middle school-age children in Boston-area partner programs.
Today’s lesson, the second of the semester, focuses on card tricks that use “orbits” – the predictable paths of a number system. Eigen starts with the “Nine Card Liar” trick. (You, readers, can now pick up a deck of cards and play the game).
![Stanley Eigen pointing to a pile of cards on a table.](https://i0.wp.com/news.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/091123_MM_Stanley_Eigen_009.jpg?resize=1400%2C932&ssl=1)
![Student holding a stack of cards.](https://i0.wp.com/news.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/091123_MM_Stanley_Eigen_015.jpg?resize=1400%2C932&ssl=1)
![Student attempting a magic card trick.](https://i0.wp.com/news.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/091123_MM_Stanley_Eigen_012.jpg?resize=1400%2C932&ssl=1)
![Professor Stanley Eigen teaches mathematics, magic and puzzles at Hastings Hall.](https://i0.wp.com/news.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/091123_MM_Stanley_Eigen_003.jpg?resize=1400%2C932&ssl=1)
“Everyone, get yourselves nine cards,” Eigen said. “Mix them or not, it doesn’t matter. Now distribute them into three piles, one at a time, from left to right. The students, who have all been on campus for about a week, arrange the cards on the small desks, creating square grids.
“Pick up the middle pile,” he orders. “Look at the bottom card and remember it.” I select the 10 of Diamonds. “Drop it on one of the piles, pick it all up and put it on the third pile. Everyone is well ?
This is a “spelling round” in which cards are shuffled based on seemingly random words – the letters of a name, or the suit and value of a given card. Eigen continues: “Now think about your map, but lie and spell out a completely different card. He makes the Four of Clubs, each placing a card for the letters of FOUROFCLUBS.
“Everyone spelled something different,” he said. “You lied, but the truth will solve everything. So take the top card, place it on the table: TRUT – and if you look at the H, that should be your card. Sure enough, the 10 of diamonds appears. The students, all recognizing their own card, gasp and laugh.
Eigen explains that the trick works by locking the trajectory – the orbit – of the map from the start. “It doesn’t matter what you spell,” he said. “Due to the length of the words, the card will always be third from the top, third from the bottom, fifth from the middle.”
The variants work the same way. Some magicians use the letters in people’s names, their suits or random numbers called out by the audience – keeping track of the card in the lineup is all that matters. “If you can add basic sums, you can do this trick,” says Eigen.
He takes out his flip phone, checks the time and gives the students 10 minutes to practice. Will Kibel, a first-year computer science and game design student, turns around to practice at one of the small student desks, fumbling a few steps but eventually getting it right. “I have no experience in magic,” he said in an interview a week later. So far, mastering it has proven more intimidating than math, which is relatively simple. He trains at home. “I don’t really have the flow but at least I know how to do the tricks,” he says.
This practice is at the heart of the course. HON 1310 is the only service-learning course offered by the mathematics department. As such, it is much less regulated than a typical math course. There are no prerequisites for enrolling (although Eigan says new honors students have often taken at least pre-calculus), and it’s as much about connecting to a particular audience as it is about numbers . Eigan lectures on a few key topics including gaming strategies NIM and common logic riddles and puzzles.
Beyond that, students explore further based on their own interests and what might be suitable for children in programs including Access to Chinatown, Boys & Girls Clubs of Dorchester And St. Stephen’s Youth Programs. Course materials include numerous YouTube videos of famous card sharks and magicians, as well as more prosaic math tutorials.
“I like to have Penn & Teller because they have a lot of jokes,” Eigen says. “If you’re talking to children, you may want to observe people doing it to get a sense of how they interact effectively. »
Eigen has been at Northeastern for 41 years. His academic expertise lies in ergodic theoryand he does not consider himself a Wizard in the strictest sense. “Growing up, I would do magic tricks and put on shows when my niece or nephew had a birthday,” he says. “When my kids were little, I learned how to make balloon animals, and I loved reading and understanding how these things worked.”
That was enough for Solomon Jekel, a four-decade veteran professor in the math department (the two are longtime office neighbors) to tap Eigen to teach math and magic in 2017. Since then, he’s been offered as a first-year specialized seminar. Unlike its subject, the course’s origin is superficial: “The math department needed a service-learning course,” Jekel says, deadpan, and he was tasked with designing it. “They wanted an original subject and something related to mathematics for the honors program. Stanley is the perfect person to teach a course like this.
Eigen is also perfect for first-year students away from home for the first time, just wanting to get a feel for college in a big city. “He was a very welcoming presence,” Kibel said. “He’s not intimidating; very relaxed and friendly. It would be very easy to walk into a math class and be terrified, but as a teacher he is great.
Part of the College of Science, Northeastern’s math department is huge: 700 undergraduate majors, and more than 1,000 when combined majors are taken into account. Although the course is unique, Math, Magic, Games and Puzzles represents a more conscious shift in communicating how mathematics impacts everyday life – all kinds of work, of course, but also play. of magic are linked to DNA analysis and coding theory. Some puzzles are linked to logical and ethical dilemmas. Some games are related to social skills and economics,” Eigan’s program reads.
Jekel says that with the rise of big data and statistical analysis, all fields are looking for mathematicians. “It can go from a fairly rudimentary application to (something) of a high creative level,” he says. Many fields (mathematics) that were previously primarily theoretical are now being applied to data analysis. Because it takes creative ideas to deal with the problems that arise. This helped grow the mathematics department alongside the university’s vaunted computer science, engineering and even journalism programs.
Kibel will share his newly acquired skills with elementary students in St. Stephen’s youth programs. “It’s cool to take a class where you can give back to the community,” he said. “If you’re able to learn a concept and later pass it on to kids who don’t have the same understanding of math, that’s a useful skill for everyone.”
Schuyler Velasco is a senior editor at Northeastern Global News Magazine. Send him an email to s.velasco@northeastern.edu. Follow her on X/Twitter @Schuyler_V.