Five shows? I was fed up by the end of tonight's

Peter.

Wait until it inevitably appears on YouTube.

Remember, magicians are all about misdirection. What better way of misdirecting you about how he did the trick than telling you how he did it .

I hope for his sake he didn't fix the lottery, mind. I suspect Camelot began an investigation into it the moment he got the numbers right on Wednesday night. If he really did sneak a bunch of weighted balls in, they will find out about it. IANAL so I don't know if fixing the lottery is still a crime if you don't bet on it but I wouldn't like to stake my freedom on it.

The fact he didn't show the 24 what the numbers would be is really really suspicious. Why not? They've done the work. I suspect the shots of them watching the show would have been even more dramatic if they'd known whether each number was right or not as it was drawn. Occam's razor suggests the reason he didn't show the 24 the numbers was because the numbers they guessed didn't matter.

Jon

Perhaps to prevent any of them from placing the numbers on the lottery? DB wasn't, allegedly, allowed to play the numbers generated.

Apparantly he asked 24 people to give him numbers and found averages (according to the tv.. which i didnt watch )

However, this wouldnt work. As they are guessing events that are independant to each other all he would get is a random series of numbers, the defining signature would probably be more high than low balls due to the way higher results tend to be gained from this type of number pulling.

Its things like flipping a coin, each flip is independant but every few thousand flip and unexpected run should occur of all one side (I cant remember the exact specifics). But anyway, there is no way that it could work like this where he could average out results.

Put it simply, his maths is bs

All he can find from asking 23/24 people is an average guess as to the lottery numbers, as in mean suggestions for results. However due to the balls indepenance in reality there is as much likelihood of 1,2,3,4,5,6 coming up as there is the results that did (its just that we would notice the 1st sequence because it sticks out more).

Another thing - it's entirely possible (i.e. roughly one in 50) that the average of the guesses for (say) the third ball would end up being the same number as the average of the guesses for the fifth ball. Which obviously wouldn't work for the lottery. So on average one in ten attempts would be invalid.

Jon

There's been lots and lots written about The Wisdom Of Crowds.
Do some reading and then make up your mind.

He's the king of misdirection. Derren managed to misdirect our attention for 40 minutes of an hour's worth of programme by setting up an "event" based upon 24 people guessing a set of numbers.

My main interest was why were Derren's set of balls facing the rear of the stage at the start of the event? Surely if he knew the numbers beforehand, he could have said "Right, the numbers I predict are 2, 11, 23, 28, 35 and 39" and then we all watched in amazement as they came out just like that. Instead we watched the draw....live....then watched as he turned a set of his own balls round AFTER the draw.

There's nothing magical or even statistical about how he managed this. It's simple misdirection again. I don't propose to suggest how he managed to get the correct numbers on the balls in the short time between the draw and his reveal, but that's a much more likely explanation than anything else.

One thing he said at the end is that if he had managed to rig the set up and fix the machine that it would be illegal and he would never admit to doing it on air.

He then went on to explain how he might have done it if he had but kept repeating that he hadn't (i.e. not admitting to it).

I hope it wasn't rigged, I think it will be some sort of TV trickery but I still think rigging is an option.

...relatively easy....



...almost impossibly hard.

I'm sure I saw DB talking about 'deep maths' previously. Whilst I agree such things exist, I do not believe they are applicable to this kind of thing.

I agree about the entire 'misdirection' thing. Illusionists love to create doubt - did s/he really do all that? I personally think there's another method which he used, and the two he talks about are a load of BS.

It all reminds me of david blaine. Anyone remember him? He did that 'floating' trick, which on TV was fascinating but in actuality, he used mirrors to create the effect.

Video on youtube:

clicky

Just a quicky to that Oli. Remember that he told them to write whatever came to mind whether is was a minus number or whatever. Not just lotto specific numbers i.e. 1-49
So he's covered his back there.

Personally, I think he did neither of the things he explained. The fact that he showed us how he would do it, proves that those aren't the ways he did it.

I do however, absolutely love watching him. He truly knows how to entertain, amuse and make you think at the same time. He's a genuinely amazing performer.

True.

I don't think Eastenders would ever get the reaction that Derren Brown does

What he did was explain to us how he could have done it and implied that one was more correct than the other. Fundamentally, magicians are liers. Not maliciously but the whole point of it is basically entertaining people by lieing to them. Nothing he says on the TV is to be trusted.


Agreed. I've seen quite a few of the major stage magicians and right now he's head and shoulders above the competition.

Jon