STEVEN GOODWIN LECTURE

Welcome to the lecture, “Dissecting Methods”, I hope you enjoy it! In it we will be looking at various effects (new and old) to see how the mathematics that is used in magic really work – and the cases where they don’t!

You will come away with a greater appreciation of the mechanics behind these effects so that you can easily adapt and expand the tricks in new and interesting ways, that would be impossible otherwise. You will also see how to prove that the trick will work in every case through simple reasoning, without having to test every single possibility.

About your lecturer:

Steven Goodwin is the off-stage name of mentalist and magician, James Merlin. As a performer, James does the traditional round of corporate ice-breakers, trade shows, and weddings, with the occasional stage performance at places likes the Magicians Showcase and The Magic Circle (both London) and the Junction theatre in Cambridge (where he was once reviewed with the phrase, “James Merlin is the DerrenBrown of Cambridge”)

On the other hand, Steven Goodwin is much more interesting!

Professional quiz writer, composer, author, AFOL, game developer, lecturer, advocate, recreational mathematician, and general-purpose computer geek are just a few sides to his polymath personality!

Steven is also not adverse to subverting the genre and crossing the streams, as was last seen in 2024 when he presented a keynote lecture in Brussels on how Open Source Software and Magic are related to intellectual property law.

His public contributions to magic have been under his private name (to avoid inquisitions from the merely curious!) and include publications such as Abra, Linking Ring, Top Hat and not forgetting “The Alexa Trick” (as published by Alakazam.) and the book “Mathematics in Magic.