CS1231 PROJECT

MATHEMATICS MAGIC TRICK

GILBREATH-PRINCIPLE
GROUP 63

LOW GUO XIN AARON

A0123977U
MIKE ZHANG XUNDA
A0124078H
HOU BOWEN
A0125084L
GO HUI SHAN
A0126000H

Table of Contents
Project Proposal ...........................................................................................
o introduction
o Gilbreath Principle
o Variants of magic trick
o Expected Results
o Mathematics/Rationale

I.

Ideas for video ................................................................................................

INTRODUCTION
Welcome to our CS1231 Project Synopsis In this project, we will be
introducing a mathematical theory that applies to a variety of magic tricks.

GILBREATH PRINCIPLE
It was discovered by Californian Norman Gilbreath, a mathematician and
Lifelong magician, in the early 1950s.c. It is an application of combinatorial
mathematics When two groups of cards in reversed sequential order are riffle
shuffled together, the lower cards in one packet will force their complement out
of the group at the top of the other packet. That is the Gilbreath Principle in a
nutshell. Most of the time, it will always result in self-working magic tricks.

VARIANTS OF MAGIC TRICKS

1. Red-Black pair (Original)
1. Get a deck of cards and arrange them so that they are in black/red
alternation. The suits and values of the cards dont matter.
2. Have someone cut the deck and riffle shuffle it once.
3. Put the cards behind your back
4. At regular time interval, pull out 1 pair of cards. (It is actually the top 2
cards every single time. It is just to give the audience the illusion you
are finding the cards without looking)
2. Diagonal Attraction (Advance)
1. Get a deck of cards and arrange them so that they are in black/red
alternation. The suits and values of the cards dont matter. It is
optional to false shuffle the cards but it cannot change the order.
2. Have someone cut the deck and riffle shuffle it once.
3. Find two adjacent cards of the same colour near the middle of the
deck and cut the deck.
4. Divide the deck in to 2 separate piles by distributing one by one.
5. From the first pile, turn over the card one by one. If the card is red,
place it on the table, and take one card from the second file and
place it diagonal to the red card. If the card is black, place it beside
the red card, and draw the next card from the second pile, and put
CS1231 PROJECT - SEPTEMBER 2014

it diagonal to that of the black card. You should form a square

shape by now.
6. Continue to draw cards from the piles in this pattern until both piles
has run out of cards.
3. Mentalism card trick (Advance)
1. Get a deck of cards and arrange the cards in terms of 4 suites Ace
through King. Order the 4 suites side by side in terms of red black red
black.
2. Now from the second pile (black) put the Jack and cards following it
to the top of the deck. From the third pile (red),put the number 8 and
cards following it to the top of the deck. From the 4th pile (black),put
the number 5 and cards following it to the top of the deck.
3. Now stack the deck from the first pile to the 4th pile one card at a
time until all the cards are compiled into one deck.
4. Let the audience cut as many times as they want to.
5. Next, let them cut the deck in half. Flip over one half of the deck and
do a rifle shuffle with 2 halves in reverse order.
6. Now hold the deck of cards behind your back.
7. Find a pair of cards(red and black) x 4 times
8. Find 4 cards consist of all different suites x 4 times.
9. Next find one last pair of cards(red and black).
10. Finally, pull out 2 deck of 13 cards. Show that the 13 cards are Ace
through Kings with no repeats.

Results

Essentially, all the 3 tricks are based on the Gilbreath principle, whereby the
initial order of the cards matters but will not be changed even with
shuffling. The Gilbreath principle will preserve the specific pattern designed
at the start by reversing the order of a stacked cards then shuffling it in with
a pile of cards in the original order.

CS1231 PROJECT - SEPTEMBER 2014

MATHS CONCEPT BEHIND MAGIC

Lets imagine that we have 5 red blocks

and 5 green blocks, each having numbers
1-5 respectively. However, for the 5 red
blocks, it will be numbered 1 through 5 topdown, while for the green blocks it will be
numbered 5 through 1 top-down.
From here you can place as many green
blocks into the red stack as you want.
However, the only condition that must be
followed is that the blocks must stay in their
original sequential order.
This means that the 1st green block must
stay below the 2nd green block, the 2nd
green block must stay below 3rd green
block and so on so forth. This also means
that the 4th red block must stay above the
5th red block, the 3rd red block must stay
above the 4th red block and so on. This
means that the bottom block of the green
stack (block number 1 of the green blocks
will be the first block to be added to the
stack of the red blocks.)
This is the same principle as what happens
when you riffle u two decks of cards
together. The 2 decks of cards interlace,
where the bottommost card of the deck
stays at the bottom in comparison to the
other cards that were in the same deck
before they were riffle-shuffled; they
maintain their sequential order.

Ideas for video

In the video(we wil be doing only the mentalism card trick)

o Firstly, we will start off by giving a short introduction of the Gilbreath
Principle and its origination.
o Secondly, we will be demonstrating how the magic trick works
o Next, we will be breaking down the magic tricks and explain it in
terms of its mathematical concept.
o Lastly, we will be performing the magic trick again with explanation.

CS1231 PROJECT - SEPTEMBER 2014

Bibliography
(2014, February 3). Retrieved September 14, 2014, from MAGICPEDIA:
http://www.geniimagazine.com/magicpedia/Gilbreath_Principle
Behind The Back Mentalism Card Tricks Revealed. (2010, May 26). Retrieved September 13, 2014,
from Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB0RhC1pHKU
Diagonal Attraction - Card Tricks Revealed. (2010, April 28). Retrieved September 13, 2014, from
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YepgUlg_i_A
Gilbreath Shuffle. (2014, May 13). Retrieved September 12, 2014, from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbreath_shuffle
Hommes, A. (2014, July 2). The Gilbreath Principle. Retrieved September 13, 2014, from Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2y-tvB3twU
Micho, G. P. (2014). Mathematical Magic. Retrieved September 12, 2014, from numericana:
http://www.numericana.com/answer/magic.htm
Morton, J. (2014, March 14). Understanding the Gilbreath Principle. Retrieved September 12,
2014, from Pop Void: http://popvoid.blogspot.sg/2014/03/understanding-gilbreathprinciple.html
Princeton University Press. (n.d.). From the Gilbreath Principle To The Mandelbrot Set. Retrieved
September 10, 2014, from princeton: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s5_9510.pdf
Simanek, D. (n.d.). The Gilbreath Principle. Retrieved September 14, 2014, from lhup.edu:
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/make/magic.htm
Su, & Francis. (n.d.). Red-Black Pairs Card Trick. Retrieved from Math Fun Facts:
https://www.math.hmc.edu/funfacts/ffiles/20003.8.shtml
Worlds Apart REVEALED. (2012, May 8). Retrieved September 13, 2014, from Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTvZI0yrmDQ

THE END

CS1231 PROJECT - SEPTEMBER 2014