Levitating magician: A viral Pepsi ad shows an English magician apparently levitating alongside a double-decker bus. How are we so easily fooled by magic?
A TV commercial posted online shows an English magician named Dynamo apparently levitating off the side of one of London's iconic double-decker buses, as amazed onlookers gape, point, and, because this is 2013, shoot photos and video with their phones. He then slides off the bus, produces a can of Pepsi Max, opens it, and takes a sip.
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It was posted on Monday, and by Thursday afternoon, it already had more than 2.3 million views. Have a look at the video at the top of this page, if you haven't done so already.
"If you can just take a moment to look at things from a new perspective," says Dynamo in his gentle Yorkshire accent, "you might see the world in a whole new light."?
So how did Dynamo do it? Here, we reveal his secret: He had the soda can in his pocket the whole time.?
OK, we're not going to say how Dynamo floated alongside the bus: Exposing the secrets of individual magicians serves only to diminish the entertainment. (It can also ruin their livelihoods, and why would we want to do that?)?
So instead, we'll just give away how every magician everywhere performs every illusion. And we'll share some cognitive psychology with you along the way.
At the heart of every illusion is misdirection, the manipulation of the audience's attention. ?
"Everyone knows what attention is," wrote William James in his seminal 1890 work, "Principles of Psychology."
"It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state which in French is called distraction, and Zerstreutheit in German."
And skilled magicians are the ultimate?Zerstreutheitmeisters. Gesturing hands, shiny props, dazzling spotlights, flying doves, "assistants" in sparkly outfits, and, in Dynamo's case, waggling feet and a smartphone are all expertly deployed to take your mind off of where the "magic" ? usually a fairly straightforward mechanism ? is really happening. And we fall for it almost every time.
We get fooled for two big reasons: The first is that we aren't able to take in all of the stimuli in our environment all at once. You might think that you're eyes are merely windows to the outside world, but the picture that you're seeing right now is mostly a simulation. As you focus your attention on these words, the rest your visual field is sketched out in only the barest detail. It only appears like a rich vista because your brain is constantly filling in the gaps, not with what it actually perceives, but with what it expects to perceive. ?
Want proof? Place your left hand over your left eye. Extend your right arm forward, with your index finger raised. Now, staring at a point straight ahead, and not at your finger, slowly move your arm to the right. When your arm is at an angle of about 15 degrees, the tip of your finger will vanish. Presto!
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