30/09/2022

Festival: Math Magic Teaches and Entertains the Public

Pedro Malagutti, pesquisador da UFSCar

Encouraging students to appreciate the beauty of mathematics. It was with this aim that researcher Pedro Malagutti, from UFSCar, presented the lecture "Magic, Combinatorial Analysis and Other Mysteries".

"The goal is to make the child's eyes light up. And then the windows open and learning happens," said the "math magician."

For 30 minutes, he interacted with the students and taught mathematical concepts to a packed auditorium through magic tricks.

Upon arriving at the venue, the attendees received a magic wand to assist Malagutti in performing his tricks. In doing so, the students also became the protagonists of the lecture.

After capturing the audience's attention, the researcher asked someone from the audience for help: dozens of students volunteered for the task. He took advantage of the moment to make jokes and elicit laughter from the audience.

"You've already learned how to make a magic wand. So now let's do some math magic," he announced. Malagutti then presented a combinatorics problem using pieces of clothing and demonstrated, in practice, the use of combinations.

Interaction with the public

The researcher continued his presentation with other topics. He performed a trick with playing cards – leaving the students impressed – and used balls with the colors of a traffic light in a "teleportation" magic trick.

Alunos animados para interagir em palestra do Festival

In the final part of the presentation, Pedro Malagutti interacted with the audience again and used the Hypotenuse rabbit. The stuffed animal helped the researcher choose audience members to participate in a number trick.

"Mathematics and magic have something very much in common. In mathematics, you want to discover the solution to the problem. And magic is the same thing. You want to discover how the magician is tricking you. When you discover one thing and discover another, the pleasure you get is very similar. But magic is very visual, and mathematics is more about an inner, intellectual perspective. That's why it's cool to combine the two," said the UFSCar researcher at the end of his lecture.

The National Mathematics Festival takes place from Thursday (29) to Saturday (1st), at Marina da Glória. The first day was dedicated to public and private schools that registered for the event. On Friday and Saturday, the space is open to the public who registered for the event.