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Magicians and Children

© Copyright 2000, Jim Loy

Magicians (stage magicians) are entertainers. Their job is to mystify us, not with real magic, but with clever trickery. And our job is to be entertained, to be delighted by the amazing appearance of magic. We know it is trickery, but we don't know how it was done (usually), and we are delightfully amazed. Magicians sometimes say that children are more difficult to fool than adults. The crude picture on the left shows one of the main reasons for this. Our magician has just shown us a coin in the left-most hand (the one that is now pointing), and then grabbed it with the right-most hand. We know that the coin is now in the right-most hand, partly because of the smooth dexterity of the magician, and partly because the left-most hand is pointing at the coin in the other hand. And presto, the coin will soon vanish from the right-most hand. Well, the coin is very likely to still be in the left-most hand, despite the pointing gesture. This pointing gesture is not hard-wired into the brains of children, as it is in adults. And so they are less likely to be fooled.

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