“Those assumptions work great until you walk into a wall.”   ◆

OK, final Teller links for the night. He’s been interested in the psychology behind magic for a long time. He co-authored “Attention and awareness in stage magic: turning tricks into research” for Nature Reviews Neuroscience in 2008, and Wired Magazine profiled him in 2009:

Teller designed his own house in the Las Vegas foothills, and he delights in showing first-time visitors around. He starts the tour by pointing down a hallway at a window, through which I see a beautiful view of the sprawling neon city below.

“Go take a look,” Teller says. I amble down the hall and—just before reaching the end—smack into something hard, leaving a wet mouth-print on polished glass. The “window” is merely a reflection; the hallway ends in a precisely angled, mirrored door. “You didn’t see the illusion because you weren’t expecting one,” Teller says. “You assumed I wasn’t fucking with your head and that this hallway is actually a normal hallway. Those assumptions work great until you walk into a wall.”

I love this guy.