Derren Brown

[cr6196]

does anyone actually want to guess about what happened or just bitch about him?

i see the way he did it being similar to the horse racing one or that coin flip thing...i was wondering if he had recorded him turning round the balls possible and then just switched to to the tape...i think it is certainly likely that he had more than one group of people doing the selecting anyways....

 

[donaldduke]

Anyone see that lotterry bull**** by Derren Brown - Would have had some sort of validity if he'd actually shown SOMEONE the numbers before the lottery was announced...

If a famous magician would even attempt to publically predict just ONE of the balls before the announcement that would actually be amazing. But they wont even try that because there is about a 90% chance they will look like a complete **** in front of the whole world.

 

[trendie]

does anyone actually want to guess about what happened or just bitch about him?

i see the way he did it being similar to the horse racing one or that coin flip thing...i was wondering if he had recorded him turning round the balls possible and then just switched to to the tape...i think it is certainly likely that he had more than one group of people doing the selecting anyways....

thats more like it, cr6196! something more productive.

going on the fact that the balls were white, not coloured, therefore there was no real advance knowledge...

the balls were already in place, and not picked from 49.
the balls were not investigated in any way to ascertain their structure, either before, or after the trick was complete.
the camera stayed a fixed distance away, and there was no close-up of the balls.

Could there have been some kind of sophisticated LED with a small battery in each ball?

While he was writing the numbers on the card, one of his hands was obscurred.
And while he was writing, a delay was enforced between when the actual numbers were revealed, and the prediction.

Could he have sent some kind of electronic signal, one at a time to the balls, triggering the LED to show the correct number?

 

[Paulie_5]

thats more like it, cr6196! something more productive.

going on the fact that the balls were white, not coloured, therefore there was no real advance knowledge...

the balls were already in place, and not picked from 49.
the balls were not investigated in any way to ascertain their structure, either before, or after the trick was complete.
the camera stayed a fixed distance away, and there was no close-up of the balls.

Could there have been some kind of sophisticated LED with a small battery in each ball?

While he was writing the numbers on the card, one of his hands was obscurred.
And while he was writing, a delay was enforced between when the actual numbers were revealed, and the prediction.

Could he have sent some kind of electronic signal, one at a time to the balls, triggering the LED to show the correct number?

Trendie - some good ideas there, but knowing how a lot of Derren's illusions are done, it's never been his style to use mirrors, camera trickery, electronic signals, stooges etc ... (I could be wrong on this occasion though .. )

I'm pretty sure cr619 is on the right lines. He will have somehow used the same principal as the '10-heads in a row coin toss' and the way he did 'The System' Horse Racing.

The fact that he made a point of saying at the beginning "I may only get 5 right" shows that he will have covered all his bases to definitely get 5 right, and the 6th ball was just him getting lucky.

Although even with 5 balls (and assuming the same principal as the '10-heads in a row coin toss') this is still an enormous number of combinations ..... but I wouldn't put it past Derren to try ....

 

[Ambrose Ackroyd]

Glad to see the title of this thread was ammended. Use of words such as p***k demeans sites like T2W

Hi Pippppppppppppppppppppppin

I do apologise, I got carried away with the p's there.

I assume that you like the letter P.

Anyway, do I take it from your rather ppppppetulant comment that you believe T2W to have some kind of moral and upstanding ppppppppplace in the community ?

 

[GammaJammer]

I agree. He is a prick. Hope he's not taking any license payer money to show his rubbish "TV camera tricks".

So no fiction / drama on the beeb for you either then? All News and documentaries? Jeez

Mental note never to get talking to you at a party (assuming you get invited to any). Would probably be like conversing with Mr Logic off Viz

 

[Charlton]

My theory is that, although, the plastic stand for the balls appears to be clear plastic it was never closely examined. It would be reasonably easy for someone in that profession to construct some kind of "printer". The balls were white and all the numbers were black and not very well constructed (like the real lottery balls). The numbers look as if they could have been printed via inkjets or heat-sensitive surfaces to the balls. As each number is announced a wireless control sends the information to the "printer".

At the end the balls had to be rotated such that the numbers showed at the side. We only saw the white backs of the balls, so the "printer" part of the device might have rotated at the end thus moving the printed numbers formerly underneath up to the side.

This is just my theory right or wrong, but the fact that non-magicians can come up with several quite plausible, achievable and practical methods would suggest to me that good magic technicians would find it not difficult at all to achieve the results that we saw on TV.

This does not detract from Derren's concept, the way he manipulated the audience and the technical execution of the trick.

Charlton

 

[montmorencyt2w]

You mean it was a trick ! I thought that method of averaging everyone's opinion actually worked. I've got all my friends and family giving me predictions for share prices tomorrow and I'm busy averaging them out here !

Funny thing is we actually tried the averaging method on Saturday's lottery draw and got 2 numbers up which is the best we've done in a long time.

Yes, I was almost convinced by that, especially having read "The Wisdom of Crowds", and there definitely is _something_ in it.

Plus the fact that we appeared to see his team get the previous week's partly right, implying that the method was along the right lines.

I can't quite believe it would work with such precision though.

I can just about believe it might come up with say 75% of the numbers 75% of the time or something, but all numbers, to order....hm.

As always though, a class act.

 

[montmorencyt2w]

does anyone actually want to guess about what happened or just bitch about him?

i see the way he did it being similar to the horse racing one or that coin flip thing...i was wondering if he had recorded him turning round the balls possible and then just switched to to the tape...i think it is certainly likely that he had more than one group of people doing the selecting anyways....

:idea: Yes, that would figure. Perhaps hard to keep it under wraps though.

 

[montmorencyt2w]

If a famous magician would even attempt to publically predict just ONE of the balls before the announcement that would actually be amazing. But they wont even try that because there is about a 90% chance they will look like a complete **** in front of the whole world.

I don't think he would have been allowed to actually do that.

 

[montmorencyt2w]

I'm pretty sure cr619 is on the right lines. He will have somehow used the same principal as the '10-heads in a row coin toss' and the way he did 'The System' Horse Racing.

I remember how the horse racing trick worked (a scam which could also work in trading tips I'm sure...), but I don't know how the coin toss works (or were there multiple teams for this as well?).

 

[chilltrader]

Lets do one thing for fun.

Lets predict the lotto winning numbers for Sat 10th Oct 2009

Please PM me your best 6 numbers before 5th Oct 2009.

I'll pick the first 100 entries.

I'll do the number crunching... and for my part solemnly promise to share the spoils (if above 5K)

Bring it on...

 

[cr6196]

non disclosure agreement or something probablly...the 10 heads was done by recording him flipping coins until he got 10 heads in a row and then only broadcasting the part where he got 10 in a row he actually had to re-record from the start every time and it took ages...as you can imagine...and yes the horse racing thing is a stock tip scam as well...

and the thing in the class room is a classic confidence trick, look at the way the people talk, they think they actually did it...which is all part of the trick...he first gets a lot of groups, then when groups get it right that is where it starts and esp the team-building which was just irrelevant confidence boosting mind chicanery.

If you look at the automatic writing bit the guy knows the results before he works out what the group picked and i bet you anything, the numbers weren't right but the guy felt so much pressure he believed they were (i would add he said the guy was picked because he couldn't do automatic writing, a clue in itself, but he was more likely picked cos he was impressionable and not by accident)...that is derren's style...

His "mindreading" also works the same way, he tells them what to say and appears he is reading their mind, you just have to listen carefully to what he says, is all NLP, mental states (as he showed in the second program) and working on the ineffcient ways our mind works. There are some vids on youtube (the "speed reading" one and the one with colours are classics), is very simple but the way he uses it live is extremely clever/convincing and in some cases, literally unbelievable.

 

[Trader333]

I can just about believe it might come up with say 75% of the numbers 75% of the time or something, but all numbers, to order....hm.

In the words of the "Legendary John McEnroe"

You cannot be serious ?

The capability to accurately predict 75% of lottery numbers on a consistent basis if used in other activities would make anyone who could do it a billionaire in no time at all.


Paul

 

[TheBramble]

What is wrong with the obvious?

A split screen technology was used.

While we were watching Derren watching the draw, the stand with the blank lottery ping-pong thingies was a canard. Come on, we’ve all seen Oceans 11…A camera looking at a fake stand….

While the support team place the drawn balls in the stand under cover of the ‘quiet’ LHS, we then segue to the real-time stand after the draw for Darren (sorry, Derren) to shock us all with his trick.

It was a bit of fun. Anyone who has problems with it is either maladjusted or simple.

 

[trendie]

BBC NEWS | Technology | Video screens hit paper magazines

stranger than fiction: my exotic LED explanation is more exciting as a solution. and more realiseable than I first thought.

split-screen trick: bit retro, innit?

 

[Gumping]

Surely if we 'average' all of the predictions for the lottery numbers, then all of them will simply tend towards the middle number, right? So if the numbers you choose from are 1-46, then averaging will simply make a load of numbers that tend towards 23.

:?:

 

[Technically Fundamental]

Anyone who thinks that the camera was actually hand held is a c0ck. His explanation was an insult. Queer.

 

[azwhaley]

I'm stuck to my chair !