Ramprasad Saptharishi
TIFR, Bombay
July 7, 2025
From card tricks to the Mandelbrot set: The Mandelbrot set is an interesting subset of the complex numbers that arise from a very simple-to-state iterative process on the complex numbers. With that as an excuse, let us explore some card tricks! Card tricks based on mathematical ideas often have a reputation of being boring, but people who say so haven't seen the Gilbreath Principle. The point of this talk will be to explore this principle (named after Norman Gilbreath) that forms the backbone of several astonishing effects. We will see a few card tricks, try and reconstruct the method, and prove some simple and interesting properties of these `Gilbreath permutations'. Also, it turns out that Gilbreath permutations have some interesting connections to the Mandelbrot set. Hopefully that gives us sufficient cover to look at these card tricks in a summer school on advanced topics in mathematics.
TIFR, Bombay
July 7, 2025
From card tricks to the Mandelbrot set: The Mandelbrot set is an interesting subset of the complex numbers that arise from a very simple-to-state iterative process on the complex numbers. With that as an excuse, let us explore some card tricks! Card tricks based on mathematical ideas often have a reputation of being boring, but people who say so haven't seen the Gilbreath Principle. The point of this talk will be to explore this principle (named after Norman Gilbreath) that forms the backbone of several astonishing effects. We will see a few card tricks, try and reconstruct the method, and prove some simple and interesting properties of these `Gilbreath permutations'. Also, it turns out that Gilbreath permutations have some interesting connections to the Mandelbrot set. Hopefully that gives us sufficient cover to look at these card tricks in a summer school on advanced topics in mathematics.