This entry was posted on October 27, 2011 at 7:00 am and is filed under Quirky stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
37 Responses to “Penetration as you have never seen it before!”
everyone above me is wrong. It’s clearly a complex system of pullies, levers, mirrors & smoke combined with a trick safety pin designed to make it look like it “flips around”. Occam’s Razor guys.
Skepdirk is right. When the guy tries to spin the straw, the toothpick inside makes it bounce back, so it looks like the it’s penetrated, while in fact it’s done an almost 360º turn.
I’m with Luke, the light reflects from a semi-silvered mirror at a 45 degree angle that is instantly obfuscated by charged smoke electrostatically generated from a high-friction pulley triggered by a hidden lever that alters the image to a totally seperate pin with the straw at another angle. Simple but effective.
An elastic pull quickly pulls the pin with-straw-on-top, in his sleeve and at the same time a hold-out device pushes another pin with-straw-below back in his hand.
Surely the illusionist is wearing one of those power bands (a bracelet with a hologram on it) and the straw is momentarily converted into pure energy at a quantum level, reappearing in the physical domain once its chakras are aligned on the other side of the pin. Did I get it right?
Toothpick in the middle gets bent against the pin and acts as a spring firing the straw the long way around this happens so fast that your mind fills in the blanks and you think it passed through the pin.
The explanation that has the toothpick “springing” the straw to spin all the way round sounds like the best explanation to me but the first thing that occurred to me was that the straw has a cut in it in the side facing the camera, going about half-way through, level with the free bar of the pin. The angle never shows that the pin has gone all the way through an out the other side of the straw, only that the straw appears to be in front of the pin. With the cut in the straw. a little pressure could cause the pin to ‘pop’ into the gap and the gap would close again over it, making it seem, from the angle that it’s filmed at, that the pin is now behind. But yeah, it’s vaguely possibly that that would work but the springing all the way round explanation sounds better.
This trick was in a magic book years ago. That version used a match stick. You had to cut the head off the match stick because it was too visible. Seen in person the illusion is nearly perfect.
It’s disappointing that there is a jump cut in the video between the “show” and the trick. Makes it look suspicious, but it’s completely unnecessary considering how the trick works.
That is really clever! It took me a while to figure out what was going on. I think once you realize that the toothpick is absolutely necessary to the trick, then it all makes sense from there.
October 27, 2011 at 7:09 am |
I’d say it just flips around
October 27, 2011 at 7:27 am |
The quickness of the straw deceives the eye.
October 27, 2011 at 7:31 am |
And I’d say Skepdirk is right!
October 27, 2011 at 7:56 am |
everyone above me is wrong. It’s clearly a complex system of pullies, levers, mirrors & smoke combined with a trick safety pin designed to make it look like it “flips around”. Occam’s Razor guys.
October 27, 2011 at 7:56 am |
I think it just flips back and the frame rate isn’t high enough to show what’s really happening.
October 27, 2011 at 7:59 am |
Skepdirk is right. When the guy tries to spin the straw, the toothpick inside makes it bounce back, so it looks like the it’s penetrated, while in fact it’s done an almost 360º turn.
October 27, 2011 at 10:17 am
Sorry, but it is only almost a 180° turn… dupdidu…
October 27, 2011 at 8:06 am |
The pop up advert acts as misdirection so you don’t see the switch with the fake straw and safety pin :p
October 27, 2011 at 8:47 am |
Yep. If you watch the loop on the right side closely you can see it flipping from the front to the back. Very effective illusion though.
October 27, 2011 at 8:59 am |
what was the cocktail stick for?
October 27, 2011 at 10:21 am
I think without the cocktail stick, the straw would buckle, break, rip or flex at the place where needle goes throug the straw…
October 27, 2011 at 9:17 am |
I’m with Luke, the light reflects from a semi-silvered mirror at a 45 degree angle that is instantly obfuscated by charged smoke electrostatically generated from a high-friction pulley triggered by a hidden lever that alters the image to a totally seperate pin with the straw at another angle. Simple but effective.
October 27, 2011 at 9:21 am |
Stooge straw, clearly.
Very good – this exact illusion was in a book I had at 8 years old called “Magic With Science”.
Lovely.
November 1, 2011 at 12:40 am
All things old are new again (“as you have never seen it before”) thanks to Youtube.
October 27, 2011 at 9:30 am |
An elastic pull quickly pulls the pin with-straw-on-top, in his sleeve and at the same time a hold-out device pushes another pin with-straw-below back in his hand.
Wonderful done……..
That Mr Wiseman is a wise man…….
October 27, 2011 at 9:35 am |
Just another vague possibility…Maybe the pin is ‘broken’ just to the left of the straw so the straw flicks through it?
October 27, 2011 at 9:39 am |
Surely the illusionist is wearing one of those power bands (a bracelet with a hologram on it) and the straw is momentarily converted into pure energy at a quantum level, reappearing in the physical domain once its chakras are aligned on the other side of the pin. Did I get it right?
October 27, 2011 at 5:54 pm
This was my hunch as well…
October 27, 2011 at 11:21 am |
Looks like quantum tunneling to me!
October 27, 2011 at 1:21 pm |
This really isn’t what I was expecting from the title! Very disappointing. ;-p
October 27, 2011 at 2:22 pm |
Toothpick in the middle gets bent against the pin and acts as a spring firing the straw the long way around this happens so fast that your mind fills in the blanks and you think it passed through the pin.
October 27, 2011 at 2:36 pm |
Worked it out in 0.02575 secs. Worst. Friday. Puzzle. ever.
October 27, 2011 at 3:58 pm
…Thursday…
October 27, 2011 at 10:49 pm
That’s what makes it such a terrible friday puzzle!
October 27, 2011 at 2:37 pm |
The explanation that has the toothpick “springing” the straw to spin all the way round sounds like the best explanation to me but the first thing that occurred to me was that the straw has a cut in it in the side facing the camera, going about half-way through, level with the free bar of the pin. The angle never shows that the pin has gone all the way through an out the other side of the straw, only that the straw appears to be in front of the pin. With the cut in the straw. a little pressure could cause the pin to ‘pop’ into the gap and the gap would close again over it, making it seem, from the angle that it’s filmed at, that the pin is now behind. But yeah, it’s vaguely possibly that that would work but the springing all the way round explanation sounds better.
October 27, 2011 at 2:52 pm |
Kill the wizard
October 27, 2011 at 3:31 pm |
A few frames are skipped over at 12 secs in. What happened then?
October 27, 2011 at 5:09 pm |
This trick was in a magic book years ago. That version used a match stick. You had to cut the head off the match stick because it was too visible. Seen in person the illusion is nearly perfect.
October 27, 2011 at 8:35 pm |
That one was really easy….
October 27, 2011 at 10:41 pm |
Dang, By the post title, I was hoping to see something kinky………
October 31, 2011 at 1:29 am
Glad I’m not the only one that got disappointed!
October 28, 2011 at 12:51 am |
It’s disappointing that there is a jump cut in the video between the “show” and the trick. Makes it look suspicious, but it’s completely unnecessary considering how the trick works.
October 28, 2011 at 2:43 am |
one word: GENIUS !
want to create this myself. Anyone knows what is the secret yet?
October 28, 2011 at 3:26 am |
hm… good trick
October 28, 2011 at 6:38 am |
Toothpick makes the straw storng enough to rebound
October 28, 2011 at 9:15 pm |
That is really clever! It took me a while to figure out what was going on. I think once you realize that the toothpick is absolutely necessary to the trick, then it all makes sense from there.
October 31, 2011 at 1:28 am |
And I have to mention for the title… That’s what she said! I’m pretty surprised that I’m the first one to say that so far.