Quantum Lunch

Here’s an effect that’s either an act of precognition or spooky quantum mechanics.

Effect
The magician (that would be you), tells his audience that he found a bag laying in the gutter the day before and he decided to wait until this performance to actually find out what’s inside. The night before he watched a program on Quantum Mechanics and thought this would make an excellent experiment.


In a Quantum Universe outcomes of certain events aren’t determined until the very last moment. A particle is like a coin in a coin toss that’s in a half heads, half tails state until it’s looked at. The magician explains that since nobody knows what’s in the bag, it’s kind of sort of in a quantum state.

He pulls out some index cards and shows that he’s made a number of predictions of what could be in the bag. All of them are items weighing no more than a couple ounces. He shows some of his guesses: sunglasses, a sandwich, a sock, a house , a 1974 issue of Spider-Man, etc.

He hands out some blank cards and invites his audience to make their own guesses. After he’s collected a few he shuffles them back into the stack. He asks a random person to give the cards a cut. One notecard is pulled out and placed face down on the table.

A spectator is invited to reach inside the bag for the first time and pull out the mystery item. It’s a lightbulb. The notecard is turned over to reveal that indeed, the audience collective guessed a lightbulb.


Method
Presentation is everything. The method behind this effect is a simple cross-cut force. Amongst all the notecards is one that says “lightbulb”. While the magician is gathering the audience predictions together, he brings the card that says “lightbulb” to the top of the pack.


A spectator is asked to cut the cards in two. The magician places the bottom pile on top of the top pile then directs everyone’s attention to the bag. He asks another spectator to pick up the bag in preparation to find out what’s inside. He then returns his attention to the crossed deck and lifts up the packet that’s currently on top of what was the top packet. He tells a spectator to take the notecard and set is someplace face down.

The bag is opened. The item is revealed. The notecard is turned over and one more Quantum probability collapses forever.