People have loved magic since the beginning of time. Who hasn’t enjoyed watching a magician do his tricks? He seems to make things you thought were lost or destroyed appear right in front of you – such as the ripped apart playing card trick. Or conversely, he can make something disappear that totally surprises you – things which are supposed to be there are no longer visible.
I remember watching a TV special with David Copperfield as the magician. He did everything – card tricks, the bunny in the hat trick, the escape artist trick, and he made an entire airplane disappear – a Lear jet no less. But his most famous trick was done in 1983 in front of multiple cameras, with millions of people watching from home and another ten or twenty in person, and no one watching could figure out how he made a 310 foot, 225 ton Statue of Liberty vanish. Years later, the secret was revealed by David himself.
How did he do those things? Most magic involves redirecting or refocusing the audience’s attention, thereby enabling the magician to hide something from the audience, all the while talking soothingly to those watching, and perhaps pressing a few buttons. Then the outcome is revealed, and the audience is appropriately stunned and impressed. In the case of the Statue of Liberty, he hung up a sheet in front of the statue, refocused the audience’s attention in a different direction, talked soothingly to those watching, pushed a few buttons, rotated the stage ever so slowly so that a post on which the sheet was attached came between the statue and the viewer, and the Statue of Liberty magically disappeared when the sheet was lifted. The statue was still there, but we couldn’t see it because our viewpoint had changed.
A British science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke, once said, “Magic is just science that we don’t understand yet.” Science is explaining a lot of the magic in our world, but magic still exists. It exists every day in nature, in the beauty around us, in other people, and especially in children. But beyond all that, I experience that sense of magic every time my grandson comes to my house, I tell him what my computer or cell phone is doing or not doing, he talks soothingly to me, pushes a few buttons, and my attention is refocused as he magically shows me the now properly working device. As always, I am appropriately surprised, wonder how he did it, and am seriously impressed.
Technology is still magic to me!
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