Copperfield Illusion on the Web

Internet ^ | 1/7/04 | David Copperfield

[Hatteras]

I just had this sent to me and I can't figure out how it is done. Can any IT/Techie type splain it?

Copperfield Illusion

[tuknet]

ALL the cards change! I had a 6th grader explain it to me just the other day.

[Hurricane Andrew]

Simple. NONE of the card from the first set are in the second set. Since the player is only concerned with the one card he/she picked, the rest are often overlooked.

[Becki]

The final cards at the end are nowhere in the beginning. Any card you pick of the originals will not be there.

Becki

[TBall]

All of the cards are different.

[Constitution Day]

Right-o. :)

[Ed_NYC]

Yup!

[Huck]

I have a copy of this as a ppt. For that first instant, it really toys with your head, til you figure it out. Fun gag. Almost menacing.

[Johnny_Cipher]

Boy do I feel sheepish! I was about to massmail this to my friends when I read how it was done.

[dware]

The second set of cards are entirely different from the first set, maiking it seem as though the card you though of has disappeared. Instead, all cards in the first group have disappeared, and if the second set remained longer, you would see that.

[Az Joe]

He took away ALL the original cards.

[AgThorn]

Notice how quickly they take away the second batch of cards so you can't really spend too much time noticing that not only your card but ALL the cards have been changed.

[pgkdan]

Don't you feel dumb now? My granddaughter explained it to me...she figured it out on her own.

[Fudd]

ALL the cards change!

Oh, man! I was going to tell him that he needed to put another layer of tin foil on his head!

[nuconvert]

Aren't you glad you asked?

[UpstateNYer]

That's pretty cool - but also pretty simple.

None of the cards in the second batch match any of the cards in the first batch.
Thus, whatever card you pick will seem to be 'the one' that disappears from the pack.

Simple but effective.

[UpstateNYer]

Damn, that got some quick responses !!!

[Constitution Day]

LOL - My uncle e-mailed me this link a while back, and I explained it to him.
I suspect many others on this thread had figured it out beforehand too.

CD

[mollynme]

I was suspicious so I did a couple of screen prints & compared them.

[bwteim]

There's lots of versions. Here is an older one:

http://cs.bluffton.edu/~scoffman/magic.html