Puppycow
Penultimate Amazing
This video has both, but I especially like the one at 8:20 of an airplane that appears to be stopped in midair. I only lasts about 10 seconds, and there's some other cool bits.
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Optical Illusions and magic
- Thread starter Puppycow
- Start date
This video has both, but I especially like the one at 8:20 of an airplane that appears to be stopped in midair. I only lasts about 10 seconds, and there's some other cool bits.
P.J. Denyer
Penultimate Amazing
The beakers and oil are also how you can tell what type of Pyrex cookware you have, borosilicate, which is very resistant to thermal shock but easier to break through impact is the 'old' type for US and UK Pyrex although it's still made in France, this disappears in vegetable oil as it has the same refractive index. Modern US and UK Pyrex is a tempered soda-lime glass which doesn't perfectly disappear, it physically tough and resists knocks better but is more prone to shattering from heat shock.
alfaniner
Penultimate Amazing
I suppose I should relate my origin story for showing up here. (Again. It's been a while.)
I saw a TV special with David Blaine (his first one) way back in 2001. I had come in late so I missed the beginning. He did and repeated a certain simple trick that I was blown away by. (Had I seen the beginning, I might have had a better clue as to how it was done.) I know a little about magic but could not figure out any possible way he could do that particular effect.
So I researched on this still fairly new thing called the Internet (or World Wide Web -- I've never made a distinction), and came across this site. It had only been in existence a couple months. Been here ever since. A side note: this was a couple weeks before 9/11, after which the site took off and I learned a lot about skeptical thinking, ridiculous conspiracy theories, self-delusion, and a lot of other stuff.
I did find out the name of the trick (The Balducci Levitation) and how it was done, and even did it myself a few times, to kids' amazement. BUT, I also found out later that I'd been scammed. The part I saw looked impossible because it was. The jerkwad had used camera tricks and editing to get the effect I was so amazed by. I never trusted him in his later specials, and was especially pissed off at the one where he just laid on a busy sidewalk and people asked if he was OK. No trick there, I don't know what the hell it was.
But at least it got me started here. And 34000+ posts later, I'm still here. (Fortunately, so is the site! Albeit under a different name.)
I saw a TV special with David Blaine (his first one) way back in 2001. I had come in late so I missed the beginning. He did and repeated a certain simple trick that I was blown away by. (Had I seen the beginning, I might have had a better clue as to how it was done.) I know a little about magic but could not figure out any possible way he could do that particular effect.
So I researched on this still fairly new thing called the Internet (or World Wide Web -- I've never made a distinction), and came across this site. It had only been in existence a couple months. Been here ever since. A side note: this was a couple weeks before 9/11, after which the site took off and I learned a lot about skeptical thinking, ridiculous conspiracy theories, self-delusion, and a lot of other stuff.
I did find out the name of the trick (The Balducci Levitation) and how it was done, and even did it myself a few times, to kids' amazement. BUT, I also found out later that I'd been scammed. The part I saw looked impossible because it was. The jerkwad had used camera tricks and editing to get the effect I was so amazed by. I never trusted him in his later specials, and was especially pissed off at the one where he just laid on a busy sidewalk and people asked if he was OK. No trick there, I don't know what the hell it was.
But at least it got me started here. And 34000+ posts later, I'm still here. (Fortunately, so is the site! Albeit under a different name.)
dudalb
Penultimate Amazing
As the saying goes, they do it with mirrors....
alfaniner
Penultimate Amazing
Well, that's what they did for the landspeeder in Star Wars (before the Special Edition edit), and to a lesser effective extent, in SpaceBalls.
Thermal
August Member
Re: the levitation trick. I saw him do that one, and assumed he was running a slightly higher tech version, with a dummy shoe poking out from under his baggy pants, or maybe a sole that disengaged from the shoe, allowing him to stand on his toes with the top of the shoe still extending.
I once explained how that trick is done to someone and she got mad at me as if it was my fault that it is so simple. (Personally, I got mad seeing Blaine use a camera trick to make it look more impressive.)
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