The Infinite Monkey Cage - Christmas Special 2017: The Science of Magic

Episode Date: December 25, 2017

The Infinite Monkey Cage Christmas Special: The Science of MagicThe Infinite Monkeys bring their own brand of yule friendly science and comedy to the BBC Radio 4 Christmas schedule, and this year add an extra sprinkling of festive magic. Brian Cox and Robin Ince will be joined on stage by some very special guests to look at the science behind some of our best loved magic tricks and illusions. Actor, writer and illusionist Andy Nyman,actor and comedian Diane Morgan, Professor of Psychology and magician Richard Wiseman, and theologian and broadcaster Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou will all be demonstrating how basic human psychology and evolution allow us to see and believe the seemingly impossible. They'll be exploring how some basic psychology can lead to some truly impressive deceptions, and ask how easy it is to trick the human mind, even a mind like Brian's. Prepare to be amazed.Producer: Alexandra Feachem.

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. This is the BBC. Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox. And it is the Monkey Cage Christmas special, and because it is Christmas, we are talking about the magic of science and the science of magic. Now, of course, science has been magical really since the beginning of the 20th century when it became silly with quantum

physics. And that made the universe quite inexplicable, so things were dead and alive, and then other stuff was in no positions and in all positions. And that is probably why telepathy is possible, and also why I can bend spoons with my mind. Dribble. Is it? The introduction

is based on a complete misunderstanding of quantum mechanics, not surprisingly. Imagine you have a turkey in the oven and the on-off switch is connected via a Geiger counter to a radioactive nucleus that can decay. Now, the wave function of the turkey

can be written as a linear superposition of two orthogonal states. Call them alive and dead. In the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, you'd collapse the wave function of the turkey into one of the eigenstates, alive or dead, when you open it. And that is how you're cooking your turkey, is it? That is your... I reckon I can usurp Mary Berry with my ideas of cookery.

Well, no, it's precise. 450 Kelvin, temperature's about 0.0388 electron volts. It's precise. 450 Kelvin temperature, about 0.0388 electron volts. It's fine. Brian has a very large oven that is underneath most of Switzerland. So... Does no-one cook their turkey with temperatures measured in electron volts? I think it's a more fundamental unit of temperature

than degrees Celsius. If you would like to get any of Brian Cox's recipe cards, they're available on CFAX page 367. Today, we will be looking at the biology, chemistry and psychology that goes into creating magic tricks. What is the easiest way to fool

a human? What is the easiest way to fool a physicist? Has our ability to see through illusion changed over time? And because it is Christmas, we have a traditional variety bill of comedians, actors, conjurers and Hebrew Bible scholars. Because they were often cut out of the Sunday night of the London Palladium,

but they would always be recorded after Brucie, a Hebrew Bible scholar. It would always be. Now, please welcome to Tap Dance and Explain Leviticus, the Rabbi Lionel Blue. Anyway... Now, please welcome to Tap Dance and Explain Leviticus, the Rabbi Lionel Blue. Anyway, today's panel is... I'm Professor Richard Wiseman, psychologist. And would you like to hear about my favourite magic trick?

Yes, good. My favourite magic, it's more of a stunt that people can perform at home. You basically say to your kid, go under the table and I'm going to knock on the table three times, and if you can stay under there while I'm knocking on the table, you get £100. £100. And your kid goes under the table, and you knock twice, and then just walk away. Favourite magic trick?

Lovely Christmas Day tip. I'm Diane Morgan, I'm an actress, and controversially, I don't enjoy magic. Hi, I'm Francesca Stavrakopoulou. I'm a professor of Bible at Exeter University. And my favourite magic trick is Sooty's version of cutting a woman in two, because it's less misogynistic than the human version.

And I am Andy Nyman, version of cutting a woman in two because it's less misogynistic than the human version and i am andy nyman and i am an actor and a writer and a director and i dabble in a bit of magic sorry diane i'm sure it's very good i wouldn't be i wouldn't be too sure and uh my i mean i'm sort of obvious to say it but i would think that my favourite magic trick is bizarrely called the Infinite Monkey Card trick. That was why I presumed that's why this show was called The Infinite Monkey Cage, was after the mystery of what was called The Infinite Monkey Card. No, it's because Radio 4 said they were going to call it Top Geek, unless we thought of anything else. Well, then that is...

No way I'm going to be a faux Hammond. Well... So, well, that is my favourite trick, I think, because it's a sort of... Within magic, there are perfect mysteries that you hear about, and that was always... It was a sort of musical one. It was quite a high-risk trick

because the audience would boo that was part of it if it went wrong, and the odds genuinely were not infinite, that was just for the drama, but the odds were always stacked very highly against the magician. So as someone who hates magic, Diane, if you were to name a card, but just the value of a card, like ace, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, jack, queen, or king... You ought to pick a number. Yeah.

That's what you're saying. Right, I've picked one. And that is... Oh, you want to know? Well, this would be what it would be. This is what the infinite... All right, eight. Eight. So, Brian, what your job would be, this would be what it would be. This is what the infinite... All right, eight. Eight. So, Brian, what your job would be would to be to say red, to choose red or black. So we know the card would be an eight now,

so would that be a red eight or a black eight? Red. A red eight, you sure? So then you would pick someone else as well now. Francesca, then. OK, so we know it's a red eight, so it would be hearts or diamonds. Diamond. So you'd have eight of diamonds,

and that would be the card that the audience would choose, and then potentially that could go very wrong. I do have a pack of cards right here, right by you. You should probably close your eyes if you hate. Just for the radio listeners, he does have a pack of cards. I do. And it's a pack of cards that's been right by Francesca all the time. I didn't even notice it. That's magic.

So, look, I'm going to... The audience can't see too much. You said the eight red diamonds. So if I go through them, and Francesca, you can verify on the mic as I go through. A, they are all different, but there's the eight of diamonds. Just pop your finger on top of that and I'll go through them, and Francesca, you can verify on the mic as I go through. A, they are all different, but there's the eight of diamonds. Just pop your finger on top of that, and I'll go through. There isn't another eight of diamonds there. For the radio audience... No.

Yeah. The eight of diamonds has been selected, placed on the table, and Francesca's finger is on it. So here's the really interesting thing. If, as an audience you would have said Jack of Hearts, you could have come to Jack of Hearts written, I took this deck this morning

and on the back of that card, in big letters I wrote the word Boo. You see, the audience could Boo if it was that. Boo is written on the card. Boo! It's written on that card. The three of spades is the next one, written on the back of that in big letters. Boo! It's written on that card. The three of spades is the next one,

written on the back of that in big letters. Boo. In fact, Francesca and everybody else and listeners who cannot see, on the back of every single card it says, Boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, right the way through. It's a load of boos. It's a load of boos. I say every single card. There is one card under your finger.

Do you want to just pick that card up, turn it over and read out what it says on the back? The infinite monkey card. Yeah! Yeah! That's awesome! And this is our panel! Oh, I know it's a trick,

but I can't work out how. Anyway, so, wait, let's start with you, Richard. Now, first of all, I suppose one of the things where sometimes magic and science has been some confusion is, say, for instance, ideas of spoon bending or perhaps sometimes

people who are able to draw the same picture if someone else is not in the same room. Now, is it done by a trick or is it breaking the laws of physics? It's the same as magic. It's breaking the laws of physics. It's like magicians. Magicians pretend that things are trickery,

but actually they have genuine magical abilities. So they'll talk about mirrors and smoke, but it's not that. They actually can make objects appear and disappear with the power of their mind. And no-one's ever said that on national radio before. So I'm quite proud of that position. So what you're talking about is psychic trickery, and this is to do with a psychological phenomenon called framing.

So if you go along to a magician, you're looking out for trickery, which means that it's quite hard to fool people. But when you go along to see somebody who claims to be psychic or a medium or so on, you're not looking out for the trickery. And so the tricks of the psychic trade can be terrible and obvious and still quite effective, and that really annoys magicians so yes basically you're looking at the same sort of trickery but through a very different frame so Andy what do you think it is in terms of where we do see magic tricks sometimes

becoming ideas of of paranormal abilities if it is something like being able to use presumed telekinetic power to, you know, bend some cutlery, that is seen as possibly persuasive. But if someone pretended that they really could cut a woman in half and then put it back together, somehow people would not then go, I presume they have magic powers. What is the level sometimes of what might appear to be a trick that can work to convince people of paranormal abilities? I think it is a really interesting question. One of the things that's amazing about magic as an art form is that when an audience goes to see a magic show,

they're sort of complicit in the game because they understand the rules, and the rules are the person that's on stage, we know it's not legitimate what they're doing, and they go along with the rules, and the rules are the person that's on stage, we know it's not legitimate, what they're doing, and they go along with the plot, and they go along... And there are people, all joking aside, like Diane, who don't like magic, who feel that being fooled is a sort of annoyance.

It's more magicians rather than magicians. You're not going to have an argument over that? No. They're so needy. Yeah. Please love me. Yeah, yeah. But I think that the audience is absolutely complicit in it

and they're happy to go along with that. Where the rules start to change is when it starts to get really interesting because that's where either the pseudo-psychic world, the spiritualist world, or the mentalism, which is sort of a lot of the work that I've done, the faux mind-reading, let's call it that, sort of world, is really interesting, and that becomes a slightly more dangerous world because the power that the performer has over the audience

is a very different sort of power, and it's an easier power to abuse. It's always fascinated me how magicians go into that world and oddly they treat it exactly the same as they would sawing a woman in half. They don't see, a lot of magicians don't see morally that there's any difference in their responsibility when they're performing mind reading magic or psychic magic or bizarre magic is another branch that involves speaking to the dead or things telekinetically moving or whatever. Whereas I think that the moral weight is hugely different, but it sort of comes down to each performer's choice.

If I pick up on the word, you said it's a more dangerous area. In what sense do you mean that? Do you mean it is a dangerous thing to have people believe in... Yeah, I think it is, because, you know, I've worked with Derren Brown. We've written, you know, I've worked with Derren for 20 years, and we collaborated with Derren, and between us we created... I worked on the first ten years of the TV with Darren and then on the... Done most of the stage shows, created them.

And it's a constant, ongoing source of moral decisions that you're having to make within that material because you have to be very careful about what you want people to believe and you have to be very careful that you're not replacing one set of lies with another dangerous set of lies. Diane, obviously we've now found out that you're not keen on magicians, but the magic trick itself, do you want it explained? Does it annoy you when you see something done?

I mean, that card trick that Andy did is brilliant. It appears to be simple, it's just a pack of cards. And I kind of like, there's a, oh, what's the trick? And then other people just sit back and go, well, I know there's a trick somewhere. It doesn't matter. Yeah, I think my problem is a lack of curiosity. I sort of don't care. Like, he could, I mean, that trick was great, you know,

but you could disappear in front of me right now and I'd still feel dead inside. And is that just me? No, it's not just us all magicians. Francesca, as a Bible scholar, as an atheist Bible scholar, did you find, from the moment that you started investigating the Bible, there was always this curiosity of going, hang on a minute, right, so you look at, say, the parting of the Red Sea or walking on water,

you know, water into wine, that you would always think, right, well, what could be the logical version of why this might be presumed? I mean, has that always been part of your kind of natural scepticism? No, not in a sense of thinking that it's logical. It was always, why is this being held as something that's unique and exclusive to Christianity or to the Bible, when actually all these kinds of myths and miracles were really common in all the different sorts of religions

throughout the ancient Near East? Why are the miracles present in the Bible? Is it just to say this is a special person? As you said, it's common to many religions. So what is the... Do they all have a different function narratively or are they just there as a... I mean, some are basically extended healing rituals.

So things like Jesus curing blindness by using his spit on the eyes of someone who's blind or kind of enabling the lame to walk. All of those things were being done anyway. So magic men, and the word magic's blind or kind of enabling the lame to walk all of those things were being done anyway so magic men and the word magic is quite a kind of we we tend to think of it as quite a derogatory or pejorative term but especially so but it's there's a sense in which it was just a part of this much broader richer religious world in which things were understood to the laws of reality as we understand them in the modern west were very different from the way a richer religious world in which things were understood to,

the laws of reality as we understand them in the modern West were very different from the way in which ancient people understood them. And so substances could have magical properties that could be transferred from one person or an object to another. So when, you know, Jesus, if all the claims that are being made about him by his earliest followers, if they were to be taken seriously, then he had to kind of, it's almost like a tick box of functions that kind of divine men and magic men had to have um you know honey the circle drawer one of my personal favorites he literally used to draw circles

and stand in them but you know jesus doesn't do that but he does the walking on water thing which is what some gods did he does the raising of the dead thing which is what elijah does in the hebrew bible so it's kind of like a tick box exercise. Why was he drawing circles and standing in them? Because it was like to protect him and other people from demons. Oh, right. Which makes sense. They don't like corners. No, it's true.

It's true. But protecting yourself. They don't like corners. Yeah. So quite often you find in a lot of Mesopotamian households, you find incantations written on pottery vessels that have been buried in the corners of houses because it's damaging. The demon is almost sucked into the bowl and into the corner

and they're trapped. If they're in a circle, they can just keep creating havoc. Or if they're in a corner, they can get trapped and you can get rid of them. A little bit like the trap that they put the ghosts in in Ghostbusters, but not as scientific. Andy, I know you study a lot or think about the history of magic. So are the origins of magic in entertainment

or are they in this rather darker sort of world there's a couple of different worlds really and they do cross over quite a lot and um i think i just wanted to pick up on something you were saying there that i think is really interesting is that magic conjuring really rudimentary base the most basic are still used um shamans still use them all the time you know bringing through a ports in the clumsiest of ways you know and quite a lot of the cult leaders over the years have used very basic mind reading tricks and very basic spiritual style tricks to convince people and again it goes full circle to what richard was saying is that when sort of you know when people want to believe something when you take when you go through a different frame it's so convincing because you

don't want to see how simple it is you know you just want the answer because it's giving an answer to the darkest, biggest, most all-consuming questions that we have. And if me personally, if I could go, I mean, I've seen loads of mediums and spiritualists and it's always wretched

and clumsy and depressing. And the most depressing thing of all to me is that I'd love it to be real i'd love to sit there and think okay i don't know what's going on now or to get a message that you think i need to just sort of reframe and restart re-questioning because that's sort of where my skepticism really comes from is that it's just if you could have proper proof, if it could be unquestionable, then everything could sort of change. Richard, is that for you?

Do you think sometimes that sceptics, like Andy, some of that scepticism is actually because you really would love it to be, to have this level of magical possibilities, and the fact that very often it seems to be linked to charlatanism is the level of disappointment. So, in fact, some of the keenest sceptics are the ones who really go, oh, wouldn't it be amazing if this really could pass through this table?

No. Do you know what? If I'd written your answer on a card, that is what I'd have written as well. I mean, it would be lovely, I guess. And magicians like being fooled. I mean, it would be lovely, I guess. And magicians like being fooled. I mean, there's a type of magic which only fools magicians and doesn't fool non-magicians, which is a bizarre moment if you're in the audience,

because you go, as a magician, wow, that's amazing, and everyone around you goes, that's really obvious. And that's performed at magic conventions. So magicians like being fooled. So I think they would enjoy the challenge and enjoy the moment of a sort of genuine miracle. But I just think that deep down as a magician, you're always sort of looking for the threads

and the trapdoors and so on. I suppose my question to Diane, though, given your deep-seated scepticism about, understandably so, about magicians, if the Son of God was to come back and offer to perform a miracle, would you be interested in that? Do I know that it's the Son of God?

Or is he just some bloke? Has he said, hello, I'm the Son of God? Because if he has, I'll probably say, oh, I've got to get a bus. Is there anything that would impress you on the magical front, given that the Son of God doesn't? If someone levitated in front of me now, I'd be impressed. Do it, Richard. Do it. No, my back's gone.

But, Diane, you made a series recently through Radio 4 called Diane Morgan Believes in Ghosts. Yep. Is that a correct statement? I love a ghost. But do you believe in ghosts? I think I really want to believe that there are ghosts. A bit like you, I'd really love to think that they were real. Because I grew up with, like, Arthur C Clarke

and Tales of the Expected. I think that must have gone into my head somehow. Plus, I'm not religious, but I do need something to believe in. So I think I just cling to ghosts in the hope that we carry on as a sort of gas. Did you find anything that convinced you that there may be such a thing, or hear stories that you couldn't explain?

Yeah, when I was a little girl, I saw a weird shadow, and I felt that someone was watching me. And I think since that moment, I felt that I can't explain what it was. It was such a strong feeling. Richard, what is the explanation? Because many people have these sorts of experiences, alien abduction or seeing ghosts, etc. Don't lock me in with the alien lock.

That's different. I put them in the same box. No. The irrational box with the bow on top of it. What is the standard explanation? Because many people, perhaps the majority of people, have some sort of experience that they can't explain and then attach something to say it's a ghost or whatever. There's all sorts of psychological mechanisms.

So the most common one is the notion of waking up and feeling there's some kind of entity pushing you down, which might be an alien if you believe in aliens or ghosts if you believe in ghosts and so on. And that's sleep paralysis, which is when you're asleep and when you're dreaming you're paralyzed in order you don't act out the dream and hurt yourself and then as you come through to waking state some of that paralysis comes with you and then your brain tries to make sense of why you can't move so we know some of the sort of psychological mechanisms behind it but it's all right saying that but when

those things happen to you, they're really convincing, which is why you've got about a third of the population believing this stuff. So there's some sort of psychology underlying it. Francesco, I suppose in our culture now in the 21st century, religion seems to me to be the receptacle for this kind of thought.

So we are just just as human beings, like magic and mystery and the unknown. And so would that be a fair characterisation of your entire field of study? But the question is, is that the acceptable face of mystery now? There are real similarities, as Andy was saying, between religion and magic.

There's not much difference between them. It's all about imagined realities. And our ancestors, right the way back, even into Paleolithic times, there seems to be some evidence for our human ancestors having some sense of an alternate reality in which they were making contact with perhaps their dead ancestors or something. So things like handprints on the walls in caves

suggest some kind of attempt to communicate with another realm. And we do have these, particularly when it comes to talking to the dead, religion is a really useful place to put all of that stuff. So within the Western world, Christianity is the dominant religion, and there we have this sense of an afterlife, some kind of heavenly existence, some kind of, you know, the soul continues but the body is kind of left behind. But there's a sense in which what that's doing

is reflecting the fact that as human beings, we are deeply, deeply social, and it's our sociality that makes us who we are. And we can't break off the bonds, social links if you like with those who've gone before us is it necessary richard as a the human beings have to have a sense of mystery is it part of what it means to be human i think mystery is very important um to to most people i also think there's that that sense of of hope i I mean, that people have terrible lives, and sometimes. And so the notion there's someone who can magically cure you or magically speak to

a loved one who's passed on is just psychologically really appealing. And so you don't go in there being very sceptical. You go in there wanting to believe. So, you know, if you had a bad back and you went to your doctor and he or she said, what's problem and you know well you're the expert you tell me uh that it doesn't work like that you you work together to try and work out what the problem is and how you can move forward and i think that's very similar to going to a psychic you you want this stuff to be true you're working with that person dan do you find when you decided to make the program about ghosts do you recognize um the same feelings it is necessary for you as a person to have an element of the unknown, an element of mystery.

Definitely. I don't think I could get through life without it. I need to cling to that. I don't know what it is. And even though I know it's completely irrational, I still... Like earlier in the year, I was in the earlier in the year I was in the kitchen in another room the radio came on on its own and my first thought wasn't

electrical fault, it was ghost but do we need is it because we need something or some people need something inexplicable so if you could actually prove there were ghosts, that would no longer be what was required by people who believed in ghosts. Because something that can't be... Because I was thinking in terms of, you know,

Andy, when you were saying the need for mystery. Now, there is mystery over how we will ever unite gravity and quantum mechanics for a theory of everything. But that doesn't fulfill our desire to believe in Bigfoot or ghosts or telepathy. Because one of them, it appears, we have a way that, through experimentation, we might get to some kind of next stage conclusion. Whereas ghosts allows you to have a variety of interpretations and so I wonder if each time a mystery

then that mystery would not fulfil the disaster that people needed. So if they say, we found out the ghosts, there's the... I think it does though, actually, when you think about some of the more mysterious objects in the universe, black holes and things, and Carl Sagan... You don't count. This is a totally different thing. You saying, I feel fulfilled by Hawking radiation, I accept.

But you are very much in a minority. No, I was about to say... No, Carl Sagan, that wonderful quote where he said, somewhere out there, there's something wonderful waiting to be known. I think that is the driving force behind a lot of scientific inquiry that you enjoy standing on the border

between the known and the unknown. I think that's a different thing because what you're doing is you're trying to go, and I'm going to get an answer, whereas the other one says, I may have various experiences, but actually having a definite actually going, it has now been proved then it loses its potency as mystery i can't believe we've got this far on the show we haven't even

mentioned ali bongo this is meant to be about magic we've gone so off subject and made it so much easier to get those letters of complaint but it is but no i just wondered whether anyone had that idea of the need for something which will not be explained in our life when we have we look at the world at the moment, and it is very hard to actually say the idea there is specific meaning, the idea of some of the political things that we've seen seem so inexplicable that you kind of want to believe that maybe there is no explanation, but there is something wonderful,

and it may not be Hawking radiation or... I think when you listen to... I mean, if you go and see a magician, and then you go home and tell your friends what's happened, the worst possible thing is for them to tell you the solution to the magic trick and you think, oh, what an idiot for not... So next time you tell the story, you cut out their...

You say, oh, no, no, no, he checked under the box, there are no mirrors, and so on. And I think it's the same with ghost stories, that as you tell and retell, you're sort of setting up this scenario which is impossible. And I think that's at the root of it. You want to experience something for which there could be no explanation.

It makes you a very special person. And also keeps this kind of sense of mystery going. So I think that's true. As a science-based Radio 4 show, this has really gone quite wonky for Christmas, hasn't it? Well, I could bring it back by asking Andy when he's designing. So when you're designing a trick yeah or an illusion yeah and how there's presumably often engineering involved in that

that there's there's art there's also yeah there's a really interesting gift that magic has given me is it allows a sort of profound lateral thinking and a profound level of problem solving because what you do is it's all a good everything's a good story you know a good magic trick is just like any other good story it's got an intriguing beginning hopefully not too boring a middle and an excellent twist or an excellent ending and you have to reverse engineer a lot of the time when you're creating and the hardest part is coming up with the plot. And very often the plot will be something that's utterly impossible, or seemingly utterly impossible,

and then the task is, how can I take the rules that I know and understand and make something appear impossible with that? And what's really interesting, after a while, it has enabled me in life, not with magic at all, but with problem solving and problem solving within life. And I think that, you know, anybody who is thinking of getting there, I mean, I realise this is going out on Christmas, but anyone who's got a magic set for Christmas, or is thinking of giving someone a magic set, or thinking of getting into magic as a hobby, aside from what an entertaining thing it is to do, there are profound life lessons that really do come with it after a while if you persist with it.

And I find that a really interesting and unexpected gift that it's given me over the years. In terms of lateral thinking, we can actually try something, if you like. Andy's absolutely right, magic is full of wonderful examples of that. We can try something for the listeners who are listening in. I handed you a prediction before, Robin, somewhere, a piece of paper there. We'll try this with Francesca, if I may. If you can clear your mind...

That's quite hard for me to do, to be honest. And then think of any number between 1 and 100. So absolutely up to you what number, Francesca, you think of. All right? OK. So hopefully you have that number in your mind. And I didn't ask you to think of a number before. I haven't come over there and whispered anything to you. What number do you have in mind?

74. 74. OK. And seriously, that just came into your mind? Yeah. Absolutely. So, Robin, if you could open the prediction I made before the show and it says, hopefully... 74. Amazing. So... That's amazing!

Thank you. Just to explain... Diane is actually amazed. I just want to say to listeners, it really has got 74 written on this piece of paper. actually amazed. I just want to say to the listeners, it really has got 74 written on this piece of paper. That's what I just wanted to say. Exactly, exactly. So the folks listening in, I hope, are sort of scratching their heads.

We didn't talk about it before. I didn't ask you to come over there and ask you to think of 74. That was a genuine prediction and all that. And it's sort of how magic works. And people at home now listening to this will be really quite annoyed that they don't know the solution when we all do here. And...

LAUGHTER Welcome to magic, basically. I think that is exactly, as Andy says, it is a phenomenal skill set because you have to sit at home practising a lot, you've got to be to some extent socially skilled, although you wouldn't know it from most magicians' performances, and then you've got to keep a secret, and you've got to be able to say one thing and do something else.

So, for example, you've got to be able to ask someone to think of a number between one and a hundred whilst holding up a piece of paper that says, please say 74. And something that can't, all the elements of this radio show that can't really be expressed properly, one of them for the listeners at home is the utter glee

on Richard Wiseman's face as he thinks of the three minutes that you've been at home going, but how did he do it? He's really delighted in your personal agony. Now, this is one of the things, as a psychologist, you were a conjurer first, weren't you? A magician first. Then you became a psychologist. Did one lead

directly to the other? As you watched the way that you could fool people, as you watched that, because so much of creating a magic trick, I presume, is knowing how a human mind is likely to work in different social situations. Yeah, I mean, magicians are phenomenal psychologists. They're much better psychologists than psychologists. So if I do an experiment,

we did, I don't know, some memory experiment, it would probably work on, at best, say, 80% of the audience. And psychologists would go, yes, result. And that's great. Magicians can't come out and fool 80% of the people and say, 80% of the audience. And psychologists will go, yes, result. And that's great. Magicians can't come out and fool 80% of the people and say, that's a good night. I mean, I know 20% of the people worked it out, but still, majority, whoa, result.

That's a bad night. So magicians have to think, how is somebody sitting in the audience thinking? How are they feeling? In order to fool a bunch of strangers, night after night, under tricky conditions. So they really understand psychology. So that's

why I got into psychology. Is it easier to fool someone with a trick if they certainly believe that they're very smart? So perhaps someone who is, you know, a professor or whatever it might be, that actually it's easier to fool them because they are so certain that

they can't be fooled, that they will see through you, that you are able to distract them with greater ease because they are so certain that they can't be fooled that they will see through you that you are able to distract them with greater ease because they i think i think to some extent i mean magic often depends on assumptions so that the folks at home a while ago were probably assuming i wasn't holding up a piece of paper no one would be that idiotic so so it's about assumptions what would they assume it said on the paper um Well, if they knew I was holding it up, then I assume they'd think it said, please say 74. But I don't think that thought entered most people's minds. I just think you wouldn't think like that

unless you're sort of a magical thinker. So I think it's about assumptions, and it is true that, quote, bright people make more assumptions. I've always wondered about hypnotism. Do you have to be susceptible? Because I don't think I'd be able to be hypnotised. Can you hypnotise someone? Yes.

Oh, can you? Can you hypnotise me? Well, I just did, actually. And it's been an hour since you've just come back. And it all went very well. Hypnotism is slightly different. I mean, there's a lot of debate about it. You have the sort of state hypnotist group that go,

oh, you're in a weird state, and then what's called the role-playing group that are saying, oh, no, you're just sort of playing the role of a hypnotised person. I've never tried it. I've never tried it. But we can give it a go. Actually, it's illegal on the radio. We're not allowed to do the induction procedure, I think, on the radio. I believe that's the case. So, unfortunately not. on the radio. We're not allowed to do the induction procedure, I think, on the radio. I believe that's the case.

So, unfortunately not. No. No. Why? In case we hypnotise the entire nation. I think we've definitely taken them to a different state with this show so far. So, hang on. So, you're saying that you could do something now and we could hypnotise the entire nation, change their behaviour completely

and then wake them all up again? Yes. Right. So I know you've got a plan for at least 52% of them, haven't you Brian? So that can't go out. That can't go out.

And if you don't know why I said that, you don't follow his Twitter feed. He's obsessed. I wondered on this, really, whether either Francesco or Andy, that intriguing moment that happens where there was a point in our culture where science and magic were united,

where, for instance, people like John Dee or even Isaac Newton, they are both pre-eminent scientists, as we would consider them now in terms of their... But also their exploration was mystical as well. They were dealing with... And a lot of what drove what we now see as scientific imagination was also a kind of mystical imagination.

You know, when do we see... Is there a point that either you could kind of define where that branch is off and they become separate issues? Well, I'm not clever enough to be able to talk about that stuff, but what is amazing to me about the invention stuff is the pursuit of an extraordinary

idea and how you have to problem solve to get to it. So that to me is the sort of the magical thinking of that is is to to take an idea that you were saying before brian that thing of standing on the edge of something in the pursuit of trying to find an answer to an impossible i think that's that's that sort of thinking but other than that i'm not that's not really my i mean newton was that one of the great biographies is called The Last of the Magicians

because he was an alchemist as well. Although, I suppose alchemy at the time, we didn't know enough to know that you couldn't transmute elements, turn lead into gold. I mean, you can actually now with particle beams and things like that. You can do it. We know how the elements were synthesised. But I think that you're talking about someone who was on the cusp,

the change between that rather more... We're talking about 1680 in the sense of Newton. So I suppose that's the end of the magical world and the beginnings of the scientific world. Do you see that in...? Yeah, I mean, to a certain extent, people like John Dee, they were deeply, deeply religious. So there was no sort of conflict

between a religious worldview and a magical worldview. And a lot of John Dee's activities were lifted straight from the Bible. So things like trying to communicate with the dead or with spirits or prophecy and, you know, astrology and... What do I mean, astronomy? Astrology. I always move these books to the astrology section. OK, good, right, yeah.

If you've been to any charity shops recently in Exeter or Plymouth, I've moved all of them. They're right next to a load of books about crop circles. Because if you think about it, at the time, there was no difference, really. I mean, Newton is a good example because he was the first to explain how the planets moved in terms of a full mathematical framework. And even today, scientists still use the glory of the universe

to justify belief in God, this idea that there must be some kind of divine mind behind it to make these sorts of things possible. Well, the origin of the laws of nature is one of the great mysteries. The fact that we live in an ordered universe that is amenable to our intellect, a universe that we can understand at a fundamental level, is one of the great mysteries.

We don't know the answer to that. And that's why I go back to the idea that, as Andy had said, I think that the pursuit and the delighting in mystery and delighting in the unknown is clearly fundamental because every human being does it. And even scientists do it, but they do it in a different way because they seek out the unknown on the assumption that they'll be able to understand it.

And that is one of the great thrills of magic, conjuring, is being able to watch an audience... When magic really works, when the trick is just unfathomable, it's like watching a bomb go off, because you feel this, no! You know, what?

And that's so rare because, you know, just look at what our phones do. The magic that we walk around and take for granted and travel and fly and do this and do that and yet someone taking a bottle and putting

it through the table in front of you or someone doing some extraordinary thing to a whole audience that takes them on a journey and the finale of that show is like mind-blowing that's a really special unique rare thing that works on so many complicated levels, one of which, I believe, is we as an audience know, well, I know that that's not actual magic, but whatever thinking is going on is something I am not privy to, and that's an extraordinary thing that's just shifted. Yeah, I mean, Richard Wiseman holding up a piece of paper saying, please say 74.

And then she said it. But hold on a second. If you deconstruct what he did, there's actually brilliant thinking in that. Yes, that's correct. But there really, really is because there are lots of levels

in that that are, the first thing is as an effect for an audience, that really will have worked for an audience at home. And secondly, the language that Richard used to make it work is really clever, because I didn't come over there, I didn't ask you to do it before, I didn't say to you, would you just play along and say 74? All of those things are true, and linguistically,

it's easy to sort of to belittle i'm not saying you are belittling it but it's easy to sort of because richard sort of did it as a joke but actually within that joke are really sophisticated things happening to make it work so consider yourselves told off yeah i liked it as well because it was also very polite It said please say 74 Oh that's right Because that made me socially complicit I then felt obliged to say 74

It was actually terrifying doing it Because you stared straight ahead I was holding up this notice, I didn't think you'd read it I had to give it a nudge I was trying to think of a number But what's also interesting is about how simple magic secrets are. That's why magicians keep them from you. So the people at home just hearing that little prediction there

will be going, oh, my goodness, I wonder how he did that. And then you find out, oh, Richard just held up a piece of paper, and that kind of removes everything. It removes everything from it. That's why magicians keep secrets. There's a brilliant quote. There's a man called Jim Steinmeier who's a genius, who kind of created many

of um david copperfield's most famous illusions and has built and designed just extraordinary things and he's got a brilliant book called hiding the elephant and one of the expressions he has in there is that magicians are guarding an empty safe and And it's so profound because the secrets are... Not always, because sometimes the secrets are extraordinarily clever, but for the most part, as Richard said, the secrets are a bit... Oh. Again, that goes back to our desire for mystery, doesn't it? About why you might want to believe in it.

Because you're right, every time I've actually seen the explanation, you go, I much preferred when I didn't know. Absolutely. So that keys into a piece of human psychology, doesn't it? Again, this hankering that everything is way beyond us and not merely the fact that you distract us with your hand or whatever it might be. That's right.

I think the moment you have mystery, it's like, oh, my goodness, I wonder what he did. And then the moment you find out, you dismiss it. it might be. That's right. I think the moment you have mystery, it's like, oh, my goodness, I wonder what he did. And then the moment you find out, you dismiss it. It's gone. It's gone. What's great about Jim's book, which is called, as you say, Hiding the Elephant, is where that comes from, which is Houdini's Vanishing Elephant, which he performed at the turn of the last century.

So he has an elephant on stage, and the review was, five men bring on a huge box, the elephant goes in it, the elephant vanishes, 15 men push off the box, where's the elephant gone? You're talking about the skill of Richard's trick or the precision of it. Because you chose Francesca, you didn't choose Diane and I wondered whether you thought that that was because Diane was more likely to play around.

If you held up that thing saying, please say 74 to a comedian... Yes. ..then a comedian may well not say 74. So it's an element of who you choose. There's a lot... Andy said there's a lot of stuff going... I mean, doing magic for a very long time, and I think you just sort of intuitively go certain places with it. Actually, my favourite story, one of Jim's stories,

there was an illusionist called Thurston, great illusionist, he'd be like Copperfield to this day, and he performed the levitating woman. But the way that worked is that if you were standing behind it, you would see how that trick was done. But what he did, would get a little boy up from the audience, bring him behind

the woman, and this boy would look amazed, and he'd put him down. And all the magicians were going, how can you do going, how can you bring this kid up? They must have seen the solution. And eventually, Jim, in that book, tracks down the kids. And he said, what happened? And the kids were now elderly, obviously, because Thurston was a long time ago. The kids, they were all told the same story.

This gentleman magician, a bit like David Nixon, for those who remember him, would bring up a kid, they would go behind the levitating woman, and this kid would see the method, would see what was there, all the kind of strings and the gubbins and so on, and Thurston would just simply whisper, you ever mention this to anyone, I'll break your legs. Because I made an assumption there that you may well not have said what was written on the paper. Would you have said, if the paper was held up,

said, please, say 74, would you have said it? Yeah, I would. I don't want to ruin it. It's a trick. See, I think most comedians would actually say it. Do you think? I think most comedians would, because I think, oh, no, this is part of the kind of entertainment of it. Yeah, and it's right, it's the please makes a big difference.

It really does, doesn't it? Yeah. Plus, I sort of look like a simpleton. So I just sort of go like that. You look really needy. For the radio listeners, he does look like a simpleton. So, anyway, this is... Diane, now, you've had a whole show where you've had a lot of magic talked about.

You initially, I think, had a certain level of negativity towards magicians and their ways. How do you feel now, after going on this journey? Well, I don't see Richard or Andy as magicians. Correct. But it is magic. When I think of magicians, I think of, like, cups and balls, you know? And a man pulling flags out of his sleeve.

I'm so glad you went sleeve. No, of course, I enjoy what you do. So we asked the audience, who would you like to be haunted by and why? And their answers include the first one, Richard Dawkins, for the irony. It's a similar one. Robin Ince, obviously, when he's dead. Because at least he wouldn't take it too seriously. Professor Brian Cox, because he would guide me through the wonders of the solar system, universe and beyond.

A strawberry, so I will know when it really is dead. Darn whoever that was. Einstein, because it would be a relatively special experience. Anyway, happy Christmas, everyone. And thank you very much to our guests, who have been Richard Wiseman, Francesca Stavrokopoulou, Diane Morgan and Andy Nyman. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Enjoy the remainder of your very happy Christmas, I hope. We'll be back in a couple of weeks with a new series and, as has already been advised by members of our audience, if you are haunted by a ghost, just a reminder that it is breaking the second law of thermodynamics and that should see it off. You won't, though. You won't be haunted. Why not? Because they don't exist.

Anyway, enjoy being haunted... No, not enjoy being haunted this Christmas. That wasn't the way we were meant to be. Can you hear something in the attic? Welcome to Christmas. You've been terribly miserly. What's that knocking? It's your child under the table. I wanted to see at the end. I thought, I bet I can persuade Brian to go under the table because he's very susceptible to those kind of tricks.

I'm a physicist, I'm like a child. I'm not coming out. Anyway, so, thank you very much and happy Christmas. Goodbye. Goodbye. That's it. In the infinite

monkey cage Turned out nice again. This is the BBC.