Alex Stone is a science writer and magician; here he tells us interesting things about magic. Why does it work? Because our brains are easily fooled. And why are our brains easily fooled? That’s the big question. It’s because they construct a version of the world that’s not quite real. Stone tells us what it’s like to be a magician at the Magic Olympics when your trick doesn’t work — “the audience began to turn on me”. He sweats and trembles. “I’d been humiliated,” he says. But he rallies brilliantly. His section on the sense of touch, where he interviews partially-sighted magician Richard Turner, is excellent.
