C'punks, As it happens, I sent Penn an e-mail asking him about Copperfield's trick. I didn't ask HOW it was done (that's considered bad form), but if he had a good idea how it was done or could have been done. Haven't heard from him yet, but I'll report his answer when I get it. S a n d y

-----Original Message----- From: owner-cypherpunks@lne.com [mailto:owner-cypherpunks@lne.com]On Behalf Of Bill Stewart Sent: 22 October, 2001 19:05 To: cypherpunks@lne.com Subject: Re: Conman, quantum entaglement and no cat

At 04:16 PM 10/22/2001 -0700, Eric Cordian wrote:

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Anonymous forwarded:

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"It wasn't a trick," Copperfield told Bild am Sonntag newspaper after the performance on the popular Wanna Bet? show on ZDF television. "It was more an experiment and mental exercise. We only use about 10 per cent of our brain capacity." ... How gullible can people be? The only magical art Copperfield has mastered is the building of overengineered stage props.

Randi would blow this away in 10 seconds. Better they had buried Copperfield's box in a Faraday Cage under 10 feet of wet cement, and had the armed guards watch that.

Now, if Penn and Teller had done the same thing, they'd say "Of course it's a trick! We fooled you guys, and you couldn't catch how we did it! People only use 10% of our brain capacity, but we're using 15% of ours and you're using 5% of yours, so tricking you is *easy*! And we can do it again, with Teller hanging upside down in a straightjacket over a bed of nails!"

Occasionally you can see how they do their tricks, usually in the "Mofo the Psychic Gorilla" schtick, but that's because while you're catching them doing one trick, they're actually setting up another one. Mofo knows.....

BTW, Penn did a nice anti-Clipper rant in his computer column about N years ago.