Lovely illusion

This is very nice…….

Any thoughts on how it was done?

Wordclouds of 2009

It’s almost New Year’s Eve and so a good time to look back over 2009.  A few posts ago I asked men and women to come up with three words that summed up 2009 for them.  I originally put the results in Wordle, and produced two wordclouds.  However, there was a problem with upper and lower case letters, and the formatting was a bit strange. Yumerin kindly recreated the wordclouds, correcting for the case and formatting issues.  Here is the one for males….

and females….

What do you make the results? Any overall themes?  Differences between the sexes?

How to keep your New Year’s resolution

It’s that time of the year again!  Right now millions of people all around the world will be thinking about their New Year’s resolutions.

Last year we tracked hundreds of people who were trying to keep their resolution, asking them to report on their success and the techniques that they were using.  The results suggest that many of the ideas recommended by self-help experts simply don’t work.  We have developed a fun quiz on off the back of this work that predicts the likelihood of you achieving your resolutions – try it here.

We have also posted lots more about the work, including ten tips for keeping your resolutions over on the 59 seconds site.

Part of the work revealed that you will increase your chances of achieving your aims if you tell others about your goal.  So, what’s your resolution?

It’s the Friday puzzle!

Today it’s one of my all time favourite puzzles…..

There are two lengths of rope.  Each one can burn in exactly one hour. They are not the same length or width as each other.  They also are not of uniform width (they might, for example, be wider in middle than on the end), thus burning half of the rope is not necessarily 1/2 hour.  By burning the ropes, how do you measure exactly 45 minutes worth of time?

As ever, please free to say if you think you have solved it and how long it took, but please no solutions.  Answer on Monday!

Oh, and if you are struggling to find something to do on this fine day, here is my science stunts video again!

Ho Ho Ho – unusual Santa illusion!

There was a great response to the ‘three words to describe 2009′ posts yesterday – I need as many answers as possible, so keep them coming!

Also, I will be speaking on Jan 8th in Boston at a talk entitled ‘How to get more sex’ with Richard Wiseman.  This has been arranged by the wonderful Boston skeptics and will cover skepticism, 59 Seconds, and the psychology of dating. Hope you can come, details here.

Meanwhile, as we approach the holiday season, I thought it would be fun to post a Santa illusion.  So here he is…..happy one way and sad the other…..

If you are female, read this!

Today I am asking everyone to think back over 2009 and come up with just three words that describe the year for you.  They might reflect your emotions or world events, or just any word that comes to mind.  Whatever it is, could everyone please post your three words.  I will explain what this is all about very soon.  Women only in this post!

If you are male, read this!

Today I am asking everyone to think back over 2009 and come up with just three words that describe the year for you.  They might reflect your emotions or world events, or just any word that comes to mind.  Whatever it is, could everyone please post your three words.  I will explain what this is all about very soon.  Men only in this post!

Genie in the bottle illusion

First, you might rather enjoy this amzing 18 Gb photo that allows you to zoom in and in and in and in etc.  It is here.

Second, this video is really great – no edits, no CGI…..

Any thoughts on how it is done?

It’s the Friday puzzle!

First, there are moves to make Tim Minchin’s wonderful song ‘White wine in the sun‘ the Christmas number 1!  To help make this most desirable of ideas happen, please buy the track from itunes.

Second, if you are new to the blog, I post regular illusion and comments on Twitter, so feel free to follow me.

Third, it’s time for the Friday puzzle! According to an unreliable source, the weird and inaccurate soothsayer Nostradamus once announced…..

“On Wednesday 2nd February 2000, an event will take place for the first time in over 1000 years.  In fact, the last time this event happened was 28 August 888″.

For once, he was right.  What was the event? Hint: You don’t need to look up any historical events!

As ever, please feel free to say if you think you have solved it and how long it took, but do NOT post your answer.  Solution on Monday!

A quick note about Johnny Ball gate

I like Johnny Ball. In fact, he is a bit of a hero to me.  For those who haven’t heard, Johnny spoke at Robin Ince’s Godless shows on Tuesday, saying that he did not believe there is any significant link between global temperatures and human activity.  Several writers have described how the audience booed Johnny off the stage, with some suggesting that this demonstrates how ‘liberal atheists’ are intolerant of certain viewpoints (e.g., here).

I was performing on the same bill, and was standing in the wings throughout Johnny’s set.

It seemed to me that the main issue was one of timing not content.  The Godless shows involve lots of performers and everyone is given a small amount of time.  Johnny had already used up his time BEFORE starting his climate speech.  Obviously many people there did not think that Johnny had the evidence to support his position, but nevertheless sat through what must have seemed like an eternity of his climate-related material in polite silence.  Johnny then said a race-related line that many perceived as offensive and this, combined with a sense of boredom, started the slow hand clap (I didn’t hear any booing but might have missed it because it was tricky to hear in the wings).

In short, in my opinion this wasn’t about curtailing free speech.  The organisers could have asked Johnny to leave the stage because of the timing issue.  Instead gave him as long as he wanted.  It’s just that the audience were not sympathetic to Johnny’s evidence, got bored and decided that enough was enough.

Update: The line was a pun on crustaceans as ‘crushed Asians’ and a reference to illegal immigrants.

Can you lift your finger?

I am amazed that the science stunts clip has had almost 350,000 views, and love that people are now making their own versions of the stunts.  Here is my favourite so far….

The finger lifting stunt seems to be causing quite a bit of debate and it would be good to collect some data on it.  So, could everyone place their hand like so….

Except that the knuckle of the second finger should be on the table.  Now, can you lift your third finger off the table?  Would be great if everyone could post to give me an idea of the percentage of people who can.  Also, if you can do it, any idea why?  Are you a musician or hypermobile?

You won’t believe your eyes.

A big hello to all of the new people coming over to the blog!   Great to see you and I hope that you will also follow me on Twitter .

Today I am posting this a lovely and unusual illusion – simply stare at the dot and a moving gray bar will change into a strong green colour…..

How fascinating.  Anyone want to guess why it works?

Science stunt performed by naked man

My video containing 10 science stunts for Christmas parties seems to be doing well, with over 150,000 views so far.  Thanks for watching and recommending it to others!

Also excited to see that my 59 Seconds book is now available to pre-order from Amazon US.

I came across another great demo on You Tube….

What do you think?  Anyone know why it works and the conditions under which it happens?

It’s the Friday Puzzle!

A big hello to all the new people who have been kind enough to follow me on Twitter - almost up to 14,000 now!

Here is this week’s puzzle …

Can you create 8 equilateral triangles with just 6 matches?

Update: You are not allowed to break the matches! Also, what is the greatest number of equilateral triangles you can make with the matches?

As ever, please do not post your answer, but do say if you think you have solved it and how long it took. Have a great weekend and i will see you next week.

Can You Explain ‘The Moving Vanish’?

Ilya Larionov recently sent me this video of him performed the ‘Moving Vanish’…there are loads of different versions on You Tube. The claim is that they are no edits or cut….take a look….

What do you think? Camera trickery, genuine magic trick or supernatural powers?