The book guy
The guy who knew the paragraphs on the book. How did he do it? he said it wasn't a book switch or memorized....
shareI'm curious about that, too. He says it's not a memory trick so I am stumped.
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MovieChat Forums > Penn & Teller: Fool Us (2014) Discussion > The book guy
Weird thing is it looks like he switched books with Allison before the reveal.
Ok watched again and he didn't switch with Allison's book, but there is something up with his right hand coat pocket where he kept his glasses.
shareAt the end, he shows the glasses were empty frames with no lenses. However, you can see light reflecting off the lenses during part of the trick.
He may not have switched books, but he did switch glasses.
"Magic glasses" ;)
Probably a book printed with invisible ink. And the glasses let him read the book.
shareThat was my first thought as well, especially since it is obvious that they've completely edited out the last part where he swaps out his real glasses for the fakes. We can see this because he talks about page 136, asks Alyson about the biggest word on the first line and she says yes while the book is closed. In the end he is now talking about page 137 for no reason.
However, I've considered what technologies might be available to let him see a "blank" book without using colored glasses or even polarized glasses. Polarized glasses would not work since many people wear them and many cameras have polarizing filters. His glasses and/or the book would be exposed.
I also noticed that at one point he seems to be looking at the wrong side of the book (odd vs. even pages) and another time seems to have way too many pages at one side of the book compared to Alyson's book.
So I think the book really is a blank book.
One idea that came to mind would be to print the real book in a certain way such that you could reduce the number of unique pages without the average person noticing. So you could make half of the pages have 5 paragraphs, for example. Then he could have some pieces of paper stashed in his book with trivia tidbits about various pages. The glasses would magnify the print so you could fit a lot of info on those papers. Before the end, dispose of the papers.
What if the glasses/books are custom made. How much of the lens would need to be polarized or modified to view invisible writing which is probably reduced as well to minimize detection.
Think about this: take your two index fingers, and your thumbs. Form the smallest square you can with those digits. Now hold the square up to one eye. How much can you see through that square? That's probably less than a 1/16 inch area. Could only a part of the lens be polarized? Plus have the books writing reduced.
Ever heard of Google Glass? His glasses were basically similar.
He's got an LCoS display on the glasses, which had lenses during the trick. He exchanged the gimmicked glasses with the ones without the lenses at the end of the trick.
Having studied EE in college, having a brother who was a Glass developer, and looking closely at the video evidence, I will say no. Fitting any amount of electronics in those glasses would be impossible, and once you get to a control system to find the proper page or wireless data fed from a cohort, you're probably 25 years out on the technology front and tons of money.
More probable would be that he simply has the Sherlock Holmes e-book on his smart phone and is hiding it in the paperback...
Agree no need for any special tech.
More probable would be that he simply has the Sherlock Holmes e-book on his smart phone and is hiding it in the paperback...
But actually he doesn't need the entire book anywhere.
HE picked what Alison should look for on each "page". All he needed was a list of page numbers, number of paragraphs and one little bit of what was on that page.
A smart phone while it could be used would be too clunky. I think the book he had was 307 pages. He would just need maybe 6 real pages to hold all that info, Two columns of text, 25 lines each column. share
More probable would be that he simply has the Sherlock Holmes e-book on his smart phone and is hiding it in the paperback...Love all the mental gymnastics going on in this thread trying to work out how it was done, when in reality it was much more straight forward and low tech. And it's not just Sheer Luck that I know this ;^>
~Mex
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Did you ever notice that people who believe in creationism look really un-evolved?
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He wouldn't have to stash the papers.
And yes I can see how if he reduced the print and only HE told you what was on the pages you only would need one line of text for each page and maybe 20 "pages" on each page. These pages could be on the book's pages every 10 pages or so.
He told Allison what was on the page, Allison didn't ask him what was on the page so for each page you need the number of paragraphs and a few bits of "trivia".
Those trivia pages can be made so if he riffled through the book a certain way they wouldn't be seen. No one but him touched that book.
Oh and I loved Penns look at the end.
shareI'm surprised P&T didn't figure this one out (or perhaps they did later), since their own book "Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends" holds the solution to this trick. I won't say anymore, though.
sharePenn said on his podcast afterwards that the method in their book is *not* what the guy used. He also didn't use any filtered lenses, etc. He revealed his method to P&T after the show (as the Foolers almost always do), and they were legitimately fooled.
shareJust saw Jen Kramer do this trick on Masters of Illusion. Even down to the cheek to cheek joke. It was probably heavily edited. She only did one page, had no glasses, and didn't appear to switch books. Although she did keep her finger in the middle of the book for some reason.
shareI thought they should have given him a FU2 trophy at the end instead of the FU trophy.
It`s far easier to start a war than to end one.