This month’s issue of Wired includes an interesting article on how magicians exploit cognitive processes to create their magic tricks. “Our brains don’t see everything—the world is too big, too full of stimuli. So the brain takes shortcuts, constructing a picture of reality with relatively simple algorithms for what things are supposed to look like. Magicians capitalize on those rules. “Every time you perform a magic trick, you’re engaging in experimental psychology,” Teller says. “If the audience asks, ‘How the hell did he do that?’ then the experiment was successful. I’ve exploited the efficiencies of your mind.” Interestingly and as the article points out, even when the audience knows how a trick is done, they are still fooled due to how the human brian is wired. Take a look at Pen and Teller’s infamous Cup and Balls trick using clear cups.