
All Squared, Number 7: Card Magic (Colm Mulcahy part 1)
09/29/13 • 29 min
Colm Mulcahy is an original Aperiodical contributor (Aperiodicontributor?) and friend of the site. He’s spent the last year and a bit writing his new book, Mathematical Card Magic: Fifty-Two New Effects. It came out a few weeks ago, so we thought it was a good opportunity to talk to him and find out just what’s so great about mathematical magic tricks.
Actually, we had that thought quite a while ago and if we’d been the least bit organised this podcast would’ve come out the same day as the book. As it happened, we first arranged to talk to Colm back in May, and then it took literally three months before we actually managed to record the interview.
... And then it took us three weeks to edit it up and upload it. Sorry!
Because Colm had so much interesting stuff to say, we’ve split the interview into two parts. In this first half we talk about the book and mathematical card magic; in the second part, out next week, we talk about Martin Gardner and the Celebration of Mind.
Mathematical Card Magic: Fifty-Two New Effects is published by CRC Press, priced £19.99/$29.95.
Colm Mulcahy is an original Aperiodical contributor (Aperiodicontributor?) and friend of the site. He’s spent the last year and a bit writing his new book, Mathematical Card Magic: Fifty-Two New Effects. It came out a few weeks ago, so we thought it was a good opportunity to talk to him and find out just what’s so great about mathematical magic tricks.
Actually, we had that thought quite a while ago and if we’d been the least bit organised this podcast would’ve come out the same day as the book. As it happened, we first arranged to talk to Colm back in May, and then it took literally three months before we actually managed to record the interview.
... And then it took us three weeks to edit it up and upload it. Sorry!
Because Colm had so much interesting stuff to say, we’ve split the interview into two parts. In this first half we talk about the book and mathematical card magic; in the second part, out next week, we talk about Martin Gardner and the Celebration of Mind.
Mathematical Card Magic: Fifty-Two New Effects is published by CRC Press, priced £19.99/$29.95.
Previous Episode

All Squared, Number 6: Favourite maths books (part 2)
This number of the All Squared podcast contains the final third of our interview with the inestimable David Singmaster, and then a bit from CP about his favourite book, “A treatise on practical arithmetic, with book-keeping by single entry“, by William Tinwell.
The first part of the interview, and plenty of links to go with it, were in Number 5 of the podcast.
Here are some links to the things we referred to in this podcast:
- The Casa di Galileo.
- The Internet Archive has scanned in Dickson’s History of the Theory of Numbers (and Volume 2 and Volume 3).
- David’s notes are written in the SCRIPT markup language. If you know anything about it and have an idea of how to put it on the web, please get in touch.
- The Internet Archive also has a scanned-in copy of the fifth edition of Christian’s favourite book, A Treatise of Practical Arithmetic (the “of” seems to have changed to “on” for the sixth edition).
- Tynemouth Market.
- The MathsJam annual conference is attended by not just David, Katie and CP, but a whole load of people who are really passionate about recreational maths in all its forms. Registration for the 2013 meeting has just opened – you know what to do!
Finally, here are some pictures of Christian’s favourite book, so you don’t just have to imagine what he was talking about:
We hope you enjoy listening to this two-parter. We certainly enjoyed recording it!
Next Episode

All Squared, Number 8: Martin Gardner (Colm Mulcahy part 2)
This is the second and final part of our interview with Colm Mulcahy. Last week we talked about card magic; in this part we moved on to the subject of Martin Gardner and the gatherings of interesting people associated with his name.
We’ve tacked on some blather we recorded about the British Science Festival in Newcastle to the end of this podcast. Listen in to hear what we think about maths! (We’re broadly in favour of it.)
Here are some links to go with the things we talked about:
- Martin’s autobiography, Undiluted Hocus Pocus, came out last month. Here’s a review in Plus Magazine.
- Mathematics Awareness Month in 2014 will be on the theme of “Magic, Mystery and Mathematics”, to celebrate Martin Gardner’s centenary.
- The Gathering 4 Gardner happens every two years. The next one is in 2014, but it’s invitation only!
- Celebrations of Mind happen all round the world to carry on the Gardnerian spirit. You can look at a map of all the events and register your own at the official site.
Colm’s book Mathematical Card Magic: Fifty-Two New Effects is published by CRC Press, priced £19.99/$29.95 and available from the booksellers in general.
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