Thursday, December 2, 2010

An Evening with Dr. Stocker

At this year's BBB Society movie night on Tuesday, Dr. Alan Stocker introduced The Prestige with a brief discussion of perception. The Prestige is a great movie about the rivalry between two magicians; the deceit, illusion and plot keep you guessing until the very end. To better understand the science behind the magic, Dr. Stocker discussed the creation of visual illusion and why it is that we can be tricked so easily, things that magicians depend on in their acts. Here is a video he used to demonstrate how awareness is essential to the things we notice (it sure as heck got me!):




Now you know why magicians use beautiful, scantily clad women as their assistants (enter Scarlet Johansson)- slight of hand is easy when the audience is busy drooling over a gorgeous woman!

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