The Trick that Fooled Einstein

The Trick that Fooled Einstein is the name most often given to the prediction effect in which a spectator and magician each grab a number of small objects. The magician then predicts "I have as many as you, plus X more, plus enough to bring your total to Y."

Given this name in Lecture Notes of Fantastic Koran, The World's Greatest Mind Reader (1971) by Al Koran, he was doing an effect based on the principle as early as 1956.

In 1960, Koran started marketing "Jackpot Coins" using the same principle with coins.

In The Magic of Al Koran (1983), he describes a date at which he was introduced to Einstein and fooled him with this trick. Koran would bill himself as "the man who fooled Einstein".

Publications using this principle

• "Secret Spots" by Tom Bowyer from The Linking Ring October 1931 p 828. (This was also a marketed manuscript which may predate the LR appearance.)
• "So Simple" in Sandu Writes Again by Paul Stadelman, 1934.
• Scarne on Card Tricks (1950), version with playing cards, and it is described as one that Milton Berle likes to perform.
• "A Matter of Debit and Credit" from Greater Magic (1938), which Hilliard facetiously says "the trick cannot be over 12,000 years old".
• "Matchstick Divination" in Match-Stick Magic by Will Blyth (1921).