Here we go.
Why was 6 afraid to go camping with 7?
Well because seven wanted to bring three knives for survival but six knew that seven secretly
hated him and did not have benign intentions.
Don’t be too impressed.
I tweeted that six years ago.
I am literally out of material.
Or am I?
Today on MMM, Michael’s Math Magic, we’re going to talk about card stacks.
A card stack is a stack of cards in a particular order such that a magician knows what card
comes next, either through rote memorization or through the use of algorithms.
One of my favorites is the one we will be talking about today.
It is the Si Stebbins Stack.
First published in 1898 by magician Si Stebbins, real name William Coffrin.
The Si Stebbins stack is wonderful.
And it is a classic of mathematics as well as magic.
Now card stack tricks have been in literature since the 1500s but this one really works
well.
Take a look at these cards.
They look pretty, ya know, normal.
We can even cut the deck anywhere we want.
I can even do a little bit of a messy, you know, put some of the top cards on the bottom.
But some of the bottom ones on top bla bla bla.
Doesn’t matter.
Point is you now get to pick a card.
What’s the best way to do this?
How about this.
Tell me when to stop.
Okay you have to say stop.
Alright?
Ready?
Whenever you want just say stop.
Hannah, how about you tell me when to stop.
You ready?
Whenever you want.
Stop.
Oooh nice and near the top!
Love it.
Now this card that I stopped on is your card.
And I know what card you picked.
Hannah, you picked the eight of diamonds.
Was that magic or was it mathematics?
Well in a funny way it was both.
This deck of cards…there’s some drilling going on over there but that won’t stop
me because I am for you, not for them and not for me.
I’m here to talk about orders.
These cards are in Si Stebbins Order.
It doesn’t look like they have any order to them but I know by looking at a card what
card comes next.
For example the three of diamonds is on the bottom which means the six of clubs is on
the top.
What is the Si Stebbins Order?
Pretty simple.
Each card is three above the card above it.
So for example a six on top means the next card is nine.
The next card is ten, jack, queen.
The next card will be a king, ace, two.
Three, four, five, six, seven, eight and so on all the way through the deck.
But what about the suits?
Well for the suits, I’ve arranged the cards in what is called CHSD.
The word CHSD is a mnemonic here to help you remember clubs, hearts, spades, diamonds.
So if I cut the deck and just pick a random card here, I’ve got the five of spades.
Clubs, hearts, spades, diamonds.
The next card will be a diamond and it will be a diamond whose value is three more than
five.
Viewers at home, may I present the eight of diamonds.
Even though I know how the heck this works, it literally makes me feel powerful every
single time.
Certainly I won’t know what card comes next.
Eight, nine, ten, jack and after diamonds we go back to the beginning, clubs.
Jack of clubs.
Oops I did it again.
And I can do it again and again and again and again because this order isn’t just
linear, it’s cyclic.
What is the difference between those two things?
Well I think the best way to approach this topic is to talk about the movie Gremlins.
One of the very important rules about taking care of your mogwai is to not feed it after
midnight.
But here’s the problem.
This has been pointed out by many many people.
It’s always after midnight.
How long after midnight do you have to wait to feed it?
When is it long enough past midnight?
Look this is really just a semantic trick because the words we use to describe what
time it is in terms of hours, minutes, and seconds are cyclical.
If it’s 8:00 it will be 8:00 again.
The days of the week are also cyclical.
It is always after Tuesday because there will always be a Tuesday in the past.
Unless it is Tuesday, in which case, well there’s still a Tuesday in the past.
It’s all a cycle.
Here is a linear order.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
This order is pretty easy to understand.
After one comes two.
After five comes six.
But what comes after seven?
Well, nothing.
Unless we create a circle.
Now instead of having a linear order we have a cyclic order where there is no beginning
or end.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, right back to one.
This is how a deck of cards can be treated.
If I put these back together, seven will be on the bottom but that allows me to know that
the very next card is on top and it will be back at the beginning, the Ace.
So long as I do not shuffle these cards and break that order.
It doesn’t matter where I start.
Cutting a deck does not disrupt that cyclic order.
Think of it this way.
If I take the bottom three cards and move them to the top, yes, the starting and ending
point of this linear order are different but cyclically I still know what comes next.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
I can cut the deck again and move these cards here and guess what.
Now the starting and ending cards are again different but the order is still the same.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Forever.
So if I have the cards in this order, so long as all I do is cut the deck.
That is move some from the bottom, maintaining the order, put them on top, I’m just starting
somewhere else in the circle.
But it’s also one of the limitations of using card stacks in magic.
I cannot riffle shuffle these cards because then the cyclical order will be done and this
is where the actual magic comes in.
How can you make sure that your captive audience doesn’t think that perhaps you simply know
the order of all the cards in the deck.
You can learn false shuffles.
There’s some fantastic tutorials on youtube where you can learn that.
There are also some great magic kits.
Or go to your local magic shop and learn how to do it.
You could also swap decks.
Shuffle up a deck or allow an audience member to shuffle up a deck and then take that deck
and without anyone noticing, swap it out for your Si Stebbins deck.
Now, that shuffle I did where I took some cards from the top and put them on the bottom
and put some cards from the bottom on the top.
This thing right here, it can look really messy.
I love it.
But it’s actually a false shuffle.
I am changing the linear order of the cards but not the cyclic order.
That’s because when I take some cards off the top and bring the rest of the cards up
here, all I’ve really done is cut the deck.
Then I push some cards from the bottom onto the top and pull some away.
I’ve just cut the deck again.
I move what I’m now calling the top back to the bottom and the deck has been put back
together and when I put some of the top cards on the bottom and pull some away, I’m just
cutting the deck again.
All I’m doing is changing the start and stop points of my cyclic order.
So still Si Stebbins is in effect.
Ten is followed by jack, queen, king of, what comes after hearts?
That’s right, spades.
King of spades right there!
Pretty cool.
But here’s what I love about card stacks.
You can come up with any order you want.
In fact you can just come up with any order and literally, through rote memorization or
by using different memorization techniques, remember every single card in order.
Here’s a really cute one that I like.
I’ve got this deck in that order.
This one is called the Eight Kings Order.
And this is how you remember it.
Eight kings threatened to save nine fine ladies for a sick knave.
That’s it!
Those are all the cards from ace to king and I’ve put them in CHSD order so I know exactly
what suit comes after which suit.
I’m not very familiar with this order.
I just learned it a few days ago but let’s see if I can make this work.
First of all let’s cut the deck.
Actually Hannah come cut that deck.
Love it.
Perfect.
Here we go.
Okay now tell me when to stop.
Stop.
Perfect.
Your card is the card on top here and I know what it’s going to be.
It’s the six of clubs.
I knew that because I secretly looked at the card right above it which was the ace of diamonds.
Our mnemonic phrase remember was “Eight kings threatened to save nine fine ladies
for a or one sick knave.”
Sick being six and CHSD order what comes after a diamond?
We go back to clubs.
Ch the C in CHSD.
So six of clubs.
I love this very very much.
Card stacks.
I love them.
They’re a great way to explore and learn about linear vs cyclic orders.
And it’s a creative project you can do on your own.
Come up with your own order.
Name them after yourself and then no one will know how you do your magic.
I wanna try one final thing.
I’ve got…let me put all these cards back together.
I’ve got a 1 in 52 chance of getting this right and it’s never worked but every time
I have a deck of cards I try this one out.
And I figure if I try it, on average very 52 times it’ll work.
Okay so let’s see here.
I’m going to use some mind-reading.
What card is on top?
Three of diamonds.
Dang it.
Alright if we do this 52 more times.
This is a video, we could just fake it.
Oh my gosh the three of diamonds really was the next card.
Maybe you are psychic.
What are the chances of that?
If only there was some form of mathematics PROBABILITY that could help us find out.
But there isn’t so it must have been magic.
*creepy laugh* And as always, four of diamonds.
King of hearts.
Six of clubs.
Seven of diamonds.
Three of hearts.
Eight of spades.
Five of clubs.
Ace of clubs.
Jack of hearts.
Oh my gosh this is the ace of spades.
Dang it!
Six of clubs.
I want a really miraculous moment.
And as always, three of hearts.
Hey that worked!
I mean of course it works.
It always works when you’re magic.
And as always, thanks for watching.