With all the hubbub over the latest Harry Potter movie, your kids might be expressing a more avid interest in magic. For GeekMoms, this offers a great opportunity to discover how real-world magicians use tricks of neuroscience to create illusions and misdirect attention. It's the best of both worlds -- cool magic tricks paired with fascinating facts about human brains.
This link between magic and science is explored by two neuroscientists -- Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde -- in a recent book called Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions. An excerpt from the book is available on the Scientific American website, along with a video featuring magician (or "Gentleman Thief," as he prefers to be called) Apollo Robbins demonstrating some magic tricks that take advantage of various aspects of neural wiring.
Read the excerpt here, and watch the video here.
Ellen Henderson is a novelist and web strategist. She lives in Dallas, Texas, with her husband and son.
