12th November 2021

Magic Trick #1: Three Dates

Material required: A calendar, a piece of plain paper, a pencil, and a mathematic mind. (The paper and pencil are for the kid you're doing the trick for. You'll need to do simple maths in your head.)

Magic: Give a kid a calendar and ask him/her to choose three successive days from any one month, without telling you which days or month. Give the kid the paper and pencil and have him/her add the three numbers and tell you the sum. Any three successive dates from 1 to 31 will do, as long as they are consecutive. After you have this number, you will be able to tell that kid which three dates s/he chose.

Secret: This a very simple trick. Once you have the sum of the three dates, all you have to do is divide that number by 3, which will give you the middle date they chose. For example, the kid chose the 24th, 25th and 26th of October, then added those up and told you the number 75. In your head, you divide by 3 and get 25: that is the kid's middle number. Add 1 to get the date after and subtract 1 to get the date before.