Thanks to Chris Ramsay out in Montreal for offering up this informative video exploring a basic taxonomy of the different types of magicians. So if you ever encounter a magician in the wild, you’ll know what you’re up against. Forewarned is forearmed.
A Magician Explains Quantum Mechanics
Ever since I first watched Richard Feynman's Messenger lecture where he gave an introduction to the famous "double-slit" experiment, I've been fascinated by quantum physics. (Actually, my earliest exposure was in the Michael Crichton novel Timeline, but his explanation was misleading, invented in order to service the plot and allow time travel to medieval France.) It is a topic which seems to actively resist being understood, where many of the experiments designed to tease out what was actually going on, produced surprising counter-intuitive results. And yet, despite all its mystery, if you just knuckle down and do that math by brute force, the theory works. The magic of the universe, I suppose...
Anyway, a handsome young magician from Vancouver, and a handsome female assistant hiding behind a screen attempt to explain quantum mechanics... sort of. As modern TV teaches us, the essential ingredient in teaching anything on the internet is getting a woman to take her clothes off. And, as Bill Nye teaches us, the essential ingredients necessary for explaining science are suspenders and a bow tie!
Note, for those who think it's exploitative and sexist for him to make a woman get undressed for magic, here's a clip of him in a speedo for magic.