Derren Brown - outdone himself this time?

[zytok]

it didn't take him a year to sit down with numbers and he didn't have a group of people in with him for three weeks.

The show does indeed serve as an advert for his other shows (and a very good one at that). Can you honestly say that any viral ad has had more impact.

Some people will be put off by the slight lameness but you're a stronger man than most if you can resist watching next week just to see if you can be influenced or not.

re the coin thing would I be right in thinking that there is a 1/8 chance of three heads coming out in a row but only a one in four chance of a HTT or a THH as you only have to get a run of two of the same rather than three. The people stood by cheering is just fluff.

 

[Skeptic]

Given that we know all his tricks are just, well, tricks (I know how all of the ones from his recent show work - magicians use the tinernet as well you see so just needed 5min on Google ), therefore this is obviously some sort of trick.

With respect, I don't believe you. I assume you're talking about the ENIGMA show? If so, could you provide me with links to these explanations, or a hint from where to get them (email in trust if you dont want to spoil it for others). Thanks.

 

[Happy]

I did happen to find the comment about the bonus ball being for homosexuals amusing considering..

 

[eekfek]

he wont have to make an apology at all ... after all he didnt fix it, did he

a years work, brilliant !!

 

[Berserker]

Some people will be put off by the slight lameness but you're a stronger man than most if you can resist watching next week just to see if you can be influenced or not.

I watched part of the show out of curiosity (to see if he would actually reveal how it was done). I won't be watching the next one - for me the idea that he'll be using suggestion on me is a complete turn off. I'd rather be in control TYVN - but then I tend not to relax so it probably wouldn't work anyway. I've tried some Paul McKenna suggestion therapy stuff before and that didn't work either - wish it had, believe me.

he wont have to make an apology at all ... after all he didnt fix it, did he

Whoooosh

 

[NeoVo]

I thought david blaines program after was far more interesting and believable (even though obviously its magic).

 

[zytok]

to be fair most of Derren Brown's stuff is extremely clever and very difficult to work out, it just seems like he's "dropped the ball" a little on this one

 

[zytok]

I thought david blaines program after was far more interesting and believable (even though obviously its a con as well).

fixed

 

[Calabi]

I think its a setup in part for the things that are going to happen later on.

 

[rare]

I dont ever like to know how the trick/show is created, I prefer to believe in the mystery of it, I find it a lot more entertaining that way. However he did it, whether it be the theory he presented on the show or otherwise, the very fact that the numbers were there infront of me still impresses me.

David Blaines show was great to, he is really brilliant. I think its a shame that some of his stunts have outgrown his magic.

 

[bam0]

re the coin thing would I be right in thinking that there is a 1/8 chance of three heads coming out in a row but only a one in four chance of a HTT or a THH as you only have to get a run of two of the same rather than three. The people stood by cheering is just fluff.

For any specific outcome of 3 tosses the odds are all identical, 1/8. Each coin toss is independent of the one before or the one after.

Given a long enough sequence of flips though you would tend towards an even distribution of heads and tails, so with the coin flipping part in a finite sequence you are likely to find the occurence of smaller sequences where the three flips are non identical is higher than is all three are identical. (I think, it's too late for me to work it out right now )

 

[lcg]

Link

A pretty strong debunking.

That explains the trick, completely.

The show was somewhat disappointing because the 'reveal' wasn't even remotely believable, but then again, I don't think it could have been anyway (unless of course the truth was told). The 'reveal' was scientifically and mathematically incorrect. Anyone with any intelligence could deduce from that that the split screen method was used, and that page explains the trick perfectly.

I would personally go with the CGI theory and the fact that this is an entertainment show that is designed to pull in the highest audiences that C4 has had in a while. Fair play to him.

I agree!

 

[Jono8]

a camera trick. great.

 

[rs1800]

definitely a split screen trick, you can see the left hand ball move when it switches back to live.

Tonight's show was another diversion, none of those were true

 

[JBod]

Ok a group of my mates and I got together, we did it and here are our numbers for tomorrow (err technically now today):

2 | 12 | 32 | 33 | 40 | 46

 

[Andelusion]

LOLDERREN.

Na fair enough I suppose, he's got people thinking, I suppose it's a return to the old favourite 'a magician never reveals his secrets', on this occasion it's all misdirection, even the 'reveal', it's a shame that he chose such an ambitious trick as the 'explanation' given tonight is simply ridiculous and hopefully no one actually believes it.

 

[Jotun]

re the coin thing would I be right in thinking that there is a 1/8 chance of three heads coming out in a row but only a one in four chance of a HTT or a THH as you only have to get a run of two of the same rather than three. The people stood by cheering is just fluff.

I was wondering about this so knocked something together in excel...

Turns out that you're far more likely to get some combinations than others. Over 20,000 coin tosses, here are the combinations that came up:

HHH 1416
HHT 2519
HTH 2052
HTT 2449
THH 2519
THT 1996
TTH 2449
TTT 1382

When working it out I've assumed that if you got HHHHHH that is 2 matches. Each coin toss is just randomly done by excel and updating the values with F9 doesn't change much. It seems that HHH and TTT are the least likely, so derren probabaly tried to influence the guy to select one of the two and obviously knew which was best to chose. If someone went for THH and you did what he said, then HTH would be the one you should go for, which wouldn't win... so seem's he was talking rubbish. Unless my calculations are wrong.

 

[Beansprout]

Have just watched the full video and it's painfully obvious it's split-screen. How has TV come to this.

I've seen more impressive video processing in a Tesco advert.

 

[Barks]

Link

A pretty strong debunking.

Now I'm not a geek nor particularly intelligent, but it was obvious that he used that exact method. I used a similar trick in my days as an amateur film maker. The camera shake was pretty easy to explain anyway.

For those of you who still don't want to accept this. If it's not a camera trick then why was the camera not more mobile? Why did it have to be from one fixed angle?

Basically its exploiting public ignorance.

 

[Seft]

re the coin thing would I be right in thinking that there is a 1/8 chance of three heads coming out in a row but only a one in four chance of a HTT or a THH as you only have to get a run of two of the same rather than three. The people stood by cheering is just fluff.

Someone explained something similar to me a few years ago. Essentially the argument is that for every HHH, there's a strong chance that there's already been a THH (because the toss before the HHH must have been tails, otherwise HHH would have already happened. The exception is HHHHHH). However, for every THH, there is only a 50% probability of there being a HHH (THHH).

Correct me if I'm wrong, I was explained this by an excellent mathematician but I was pretty drunk at the time