Thursday, September 10, 2009

How did he do THAT?

This one will be a terrific assignment to do over the next day or two with your students: British magician/illusionist Derren Brown made good on his promise from earlier this week when he went on national TV in England yesterday to predict the six numbers which would later be selected randomly on live TV for the UK National Lottery. Lo and behold, when the actual lottery numbers were drawn, Brown nailed them -- all six numbers. (For the skeptics in your room show them the live video as well.)

How did he do that?

Have your students work on the logic behind this problem -- here's a great time to introduce Occam's Razor (if you haven't already) or examples like Clever Hans. Nothing better at getting their critical thinking skills going, especially if there's no "right answer" to reveal at the moment!

Brown plans to "tell all" on Friday, so get those thinking caps going before then!

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