I am studying physics at university level, and one day I sat down and thought about some math about a deck of cards and figured out something really cool. It is 52 different cards, so when you shuffle the cards there are quite a lot different outcomes possible. Actually (and bear with me I will explain why this is so cool soon) 8*10^67 different positions the cards can be in. For everyone who isn't that good at math that is the number 8 with 67 zeros behind it. So there are a LOT of different outcomes. If you add the jokers it is the number 2 with 71 zeros behind it.

Now you ask, why is this so cool? Well because the number of atoms in the milky way is somewhere around a one with 68 zeros behind.
So a shuffled deck with two jokers inside actually have more different possible outcomes than the number of atoms in the milky way. This is amazing and I have found it to be a fantastic thing to say as the spectator shuffles the deck to make them sure that there is no way for me to know the order of the cards.

I hope you found this as interesting as me.

PS.
I have no idea where to put this, but since people who are new to magic (myself included) need help creating patter for tricks I found this to be the best place. If anyone has a better idea please contact a mod (and also tell me ) and ask them to move it

PPS.
Sources for those interested:
http://www.quora.com/Astrophysics/How-ma......y-galaxy
54! = 2.308437e+71 (Google calc)
52! = 8.0658175e+67 (Google calc)

Are these figures as it relates to Overhand, Riffle or Faro shuffles...and will the Faro shuffles skew the math if they are Ins or Outs?

FWIW

The only figures I was good at were women.

Ray

These figures are all the different possible ways a deck can be shuffled, it doesn't matter wich way. It's just all the different positions the cards can be in

Oh yeah and I just remembered, this is of course more than all the stars in the universe

I Will think of that every time I shuffle a deck.

An application that might be more interesting / understandable to a spectator is in cutting the aces.

Well, you just cut to an ace ... A one in 13 chance. Wow, a second ace - two aces in a row, that's happen less than one in a thousand times! (Continue).

My prob & stats might be off here, but the idea is these are numbers a spectator is used to in daily life and can relate too. Most people cannot relate to numbers in the vicinity of stars in the sky. It just becomes a 'big number'. Which is less real than 1 in a thousand.

Hudson.

Awesome.

I love to work mathematics into my work, and I do so for a number of reasons. Most importantly, I'm a maths major--I love mathematics and if I'm performing, I like to inject a bit of myself into every show, and I like to tell people about the things that excite me so I can get them excited about it too. Secondly, if you ask someone a math question, their gaze move upward toward the ceiling just long enough to pull off that difficult move you're worrying about.

That said, as Hudson points out, when we start going on about big numbers, we have to analogize so people can understand. As maths people, we might be better than average at conceptualizing numbers, but can you really comprehend what, say, a billion is, without resorting to some simpler analogy? I know I can't. I'm reminded of a conversation I recently had. I was describing the largest known prime number to someone. It's 2^57,885,161-1. That's a big number. It has 17,425,170 digits. Who the hell can comprehend that? No one. But it helps if you explain that if the entire number were just written out, one digit after the next, it would fill the entire length of the entire Harry Potter series, and half again as much. That's a big number!

I'm a math/science guy, too, having taken a year of Calculus and Classical Physics (must know Calculus) in College and I think this COULD be a good patter additive to your patter, but you'd certainly have to be aware of your audience. I think I'd start by relating it to something closer to home. You could start by just mentioning an atom, asking them if they know what an atom is and how small it is. Most people don't really know, but they do know it's something really small, I mean... REALLY small. So, if they know that much than talk about home many atoms are in your human body, in the entire planet, in our solar system, and then in our galaxy. Actually the number of stars in the known universe might be the better way to go than atoms.

After all, you're just trying to get the spectator to understand that there are a WHOLE lot of shuffled combinations (order of the 52 cards) that can be made (relatable for most folks) and simply compare them to the number of stars in the sky (even though we can't see most of the stars in our known universe), so they're all HUGE numbers that none of us can truly comprehend fully. But I like Robert's use of confusing math on those not as appreciative of math's wonder, since it'll get you at LEAST a full second or two misdirection of sorts with their upward rolling eye disdain.

Such mathematical figures just might come in handy when you need to divert the spectators gaze for just a moment.

Here's an interesting video explaining it simply and how it works

http://youtu.be/uNS1QvDzCVw

Hope this helps

Dominic

It's not even about confusion or disdain, really. It's just something I've observed--even among math-y sorts of people--that when asked a math question, the eyes briefly roll up, as if trying to look for the answer somewhere up above. I certainly don't want my audience uncomfortable, but that second of misdirection can go a long way if done properly. So unless I'm working to mathematicians, I'm not asking a calculus question. But I might do: "...and I put the card about half-way down the deck. Say, what's half of fifty-two?"

But I also like trying to elevate my magic. I don't want to always speak to the lowest common denominator in the room, so I like to pepper intellectual material in. Not to the point of being confusing, but if I can share some of my love of mathematics, all the better.