The Human Abacus is PERFECT for the parlor or stage performer.
From the minds of Sean Taylor and Richard Paddon, this brilliant effect is not only baffling and entertaining, but lends itself perfectly to either a serious or light-hearted presentation. Whichever way you go with it, the impact will be the same -- HUGE!
Early in 2018, I purchased the rights to two effects from Sean -- his Pi Book Test and Flash Addition routine. After playing with them for a while, I realized that they fit together beautifully to form a brilliant multi-phased routine.
After a little brainstorming, the Alakazam team came up with a few killer endings...
The Mental Mathematician
For your final feat of amazing mind-power, your spectator just thinks of the digits as he inputs them into the calculator and, by reading his mind, you can solve the sum.
The Sum Swami
You can prove that you predicted the final outcome well ahead of time.
And There's More
Not only will you solve a huge sum before your spectator has even put the first line of digits into the calculator, but you have even determined the sum on the other side of the board!
Human Abacus Routine
The Book Test
You start by showing a book which contains the first 4,000 decimal positions of PI. Stating that you joined a book club which meets once a month, you were told you had to read The Life of Pi for the next meeting. Unfortunately, when you went to the meeting you were shown the error of your ways (but obviously by this time you had already read and digested the book!).
You offer the book out so your spectators can test you. Your spectator opens the book to any page, reads out any line of code but misses out the last digit. Now (and with no memory work at all), you reveal the missing digit.
It now gets even harder for you, as your spectator chooses another page and reads out any line of code and misses out any one digit (so that is any digit from any line from any page). Without batting an eyelid, you can instantly know the missing digit (remember, no memory work or crib).
The Boards
After blowing their minds with the book, you introduce 8 boards (each board is a column of 4 digits, and they are double sided). You have your spectator choose any 3 of the boards and pop them in the stand. You hand them a calculator to work out the sum and the game is afoot, man against machine!
Now, with no calculator or hidden devices, you write down the answer. You can actually solve the sum in super human speed!
Everyone will be amazed BUT you up the game. You now have your spectator choose any 5 of the boards to create a sum. Once again you solve this in super quick time (in fact, you can solve it before they have even finished inputting the first line!). As you can imagine, there are so many opportunities for gags and humor at this point.
As your grand finale you can choose any of the killer endings above!
Human Abacus comes complete with all the quality props you need:
The custom designed book test, the handmade wooden stand, and the 8 high quality printed plastic boards.