Whoa!! Check out this trick!!!

[Poseidon]

http://www.cyberglass.co.uk/assets/Flash/psychic.swf

Tell me what you think!!
Kinda weird!!

p.s.: I know the trick... but it took me a while to figure it out.

 

[Big-t-2538]

Illusiuon that is...not bad...but not all that creative....I figured it out before I clicked on the ball

 

[A. J. Shark]

Thats cool, kinda wierd, but cool!!
- A J

 

[Northeastwrecks]

Very cool. OK, I give up. How does it work?

 

[Big-t-2538]

We can't let the secret out yet....

 

[notabob]

SPOILER!!!! Scroll through if you don't want to read it...






























The only numbers that you will come up with will be multiples of 9 (9, 18, 27, etc.) All of those numbers have the same symbol associated with them. Every time you "Try Again" the symbols for that set of numbers change, but still remain the same for all the members of the set. That way you get anchor the 1st time, a scrible the 2nd time around, etc. Easy!

-Roman.

 

[Big-t-2538]

You're no fun...we could have told them anything...like it's similar to the jedi mind trick...only the computer is the jedi....

 

[Dectek]

I read the Instructions but did not do the math. I just concentrated on a symbol and it was correct. I thought it was a killer coincidence. Try again. WOW....It nailed it.

I went back and read the instructions again but did not do the math. Again I concentrate on a random symbol and it was correct. OK 3 for 3. I figure I am going to work on some stats. 8 more times......8 misses. I am bored now and we will stop at 25% before the numbers start sinking.
At lease it is better than that stupid card trick where they replace ALL the cards.

 

[GeekDiver]

SPOILER!

here's a more complete answer to it.



Flash Mind Reader Solution

Thu, Feb 13, 2003; by Dave Winer.
Here's an explanation of how the Flash Mind Reader works. If you want to puzzle it out for yourself, read no further. You have been warned!

A false path. At one point we thought it was tracking the mouse. Haha. Except it isn't. Even if you don't touch the mouse amazingly it always gets the right answer. Hehe.

Tim Bray was the first to respond, and he provides half the solution, because there are two tricks at work here, not just one. If you do the math, you'll see that every possible result has to be a multiple of nine. Any two-digit number can be expressed as a*10 + b. For 73 a=7, b=3. Now the puzzler requests that we subtract the sum of a and b from the number, a*10 + b - (a + b), which becomes a * 9 if you reduce it. Therefore it's a multiple of nine.

Daniel Berlinger supplies the second half of the solution by noting that the glyphs of all the multiples of nine are the same. They are? They are. That's the trick! Every time we refresh the screen the symbols change, unbeknownst to us. It gets better. 90 and 99 which are multiples of nine, have different symbols from the other multiples of nine. But there's no way to get those numbers to come out the other end of the algorithm. Nice twist.


Geek

 

[Rick L]

Rick L