The consensus on Youtube seems to be that there’s water in the last 4 cups before he pours anything in it, but I can’t see it. And for whatever reason, the videos linked to in the player after the video finishes are mostly about depth perception, though it doesn’t look like a perspective trick.

We need to get James Randi on this one :)

I was thinking as I watched it that it had something to do with different compartments in the glasses, but I’m definitely not positive about that. In any case, I’m not going to think about it too much as I’d rather not lose sleep over something that was purposefully created to be hard to figure out. But I wouldn’t mind learning how it works either!

Trick glasses. I think all glasses, except the first, have a spacer. You then pour the liquid between glass and the spacer.

hmm i think this one is rather about the fluid. I think it behaves like coke when you pour it into a glass it makes bubles, this however stays in this form. hmm weird

The glasses have a cylinder in the middle that reduces the volume. If you look carefully you can see it, it goes up about 80% of the height of the glass. Also, when he pours in the fluid, he is careful to pour on the side, but twice directs the stream into the middle of the glass and you can see the stream splash off the top of the spacer.

There must be clear fluid in the glasses before he pours in the cloudy fluid.

Followup…

You can see the clear fluid in the glasses “jiggle” when he moves the glass slightly just before he pours into it.
Also, the fluid becomes less opaque, and less viscous as he goes along. Compare the last drops to come out of the glass after the first pour to the last pour.

He needs to work on his technique for this illusion…..

I wish beers were like that :) I would be swapping beer from glass to glass all day :)

Kim:)

John, it’s either real magic or a trick, but the point of the exercise is did you enjoy watching it and the subsequent mental exercise and discussion?
If you didn’t enjoy it, the bloke failed. But it sounds like he succeeded.
That’s what those who try to explain everything, magic tricks to rainbows, misunderstand.
Magic is a means of entertainment, like singing or whatever – no-one will ever get a round of applause for revealing the secret of any trick like they could get if they learnt to do the trick and entertain people with it.
But that, of course, takes real effort.
BTW I think it can be done with beer and am prepared to research that if someone is willing to provide adequate funding ;-)

yeah chris is right. Just take a look at the last glass when he pours the fluid. Towards the end you can see the fluid splashes off from something in the middle! well done chris

I disagree, John W. The entertainment for me is a combination of figuring out what’s going on and knowing how it’s done. The end and the means are both important, not just the means. To quote Carl Sagan, “It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.”

ok with the volume
what about the mass?
the final content weights the same with the original of the first glass?
i think the whole think is foam or is the foam.

there is a cylinder in the middle of each of the bigger glasses that are filled with clear liquid. if you look at the 40/44 second mark, you can see it splash off of it. as well as during the last of him pouring the biggest one you can see it slosh on the inside of the cylinder (he accidentally poured opaque liquid into it)

there are cylinders in the bigger glases. when he fills the last glas, it is quite obvious, around the 40 second mark ,he hits the top of the cylinder anf the liquid is splashing around…

Rhoody

I think the the glasses have compartments so he is careful to pour the liquid into the compartments. The other explanation could be that the glasses contain another liquid prior to pouring the milky one

The cylinders inside the glasses don’t explain how he reverts the process, filling all the glasses with liquid, except for the lost one, when only the first glass was full.

I’d go for a “chemical” trick of some sort, be it a liquid that expands when agitated, or some reagent on the bottom of each glass that greatly expands the volume of the liquid added to it.

Either, it’s pretty neat!

This is an old “Magic Trick”.

Remember seeing it as a child.

Can’t remember exactly how it works though but it’s definitely not liquid that expands when agitated or anything of the sort. If it were, the liquid would continue to expand and it would be impossible for you to fill up the smaller glasses with the same amount of liquid from the biggest glass.

If the amount of liquid increases from glass to glass then it would continue to increase which means there would have to be liquid left over after filling the smaller glasses with the biggest glass. Sure you might say that if the liquid were in fact expanding in some way, the effect might have worn off after it filled up the last glass. But for that to be true, the time it takes and the rate at which each glass is filled, would have to decrease at a slower rate than at which it increases and not stop increasing all of a sudden. That is not the case here. The liquid seems to increase just as fast from 1 glass to another and then stops increasing all together when it is poured from the last glass in to the smaller glasses.

I remember that as a child you could buy “Magic Kits” that include this trick and if I’m not mistaken, the key features for this trick to work is that the glasses couldn’t be fully transparent and had to have lines making it harder to see inside the glass, the liquid couldn’t be transparent at all making it even harder to see inside the glass and the glasses had to be trick glasses (naturally or the trick wouldn’t work).

Another thing, if you compare his technique to that of a magician, you will find it is identical.

Last of all if you watch closely, the level at which the liquid increase is not always the same. At certain points the glass will fill up faster regardless of the amount of liquid being poured into the glass. In other words the rate at which the level of liquid rises is not always the same within the same glass. Plus as he finishes pouring from glass 2 to glass 3, the amount of liquid in glass 2 decreases, yet the level of liquid in glass 3 increases drastically.

With practice the magician is able to fill the glass with the previous glass and with the help of “Magic” (another container with a valve he can open, allowing liquid to enter the glass while increasing/decreasing the amount, to then close the valve and end up filling the glass as he finishes pouring the liquid).

Usually before you started this “Magic Trick” you would have a glass or jug of transparent liquid (often water) and a glass, packet or bottle with colored powder or liquid). Then you would ask someone from the audience to check the glasses in order to make sure the glasses were “real” drinking glasses and not “trick” glasses (of course the person chosen to check the glasses was always in on the trick which made it more credible that the “Trick” glasses were “Real” drinking glasses).

The magician would then explain that the coloring is used in order for the viewer to see the liquid more clearly as it fills the glasses, as it is harder to see transparent liquids inside transparent containers. In truth this is to make it harder for the viewer to see the magician working his “Magic” inside the glass he is currently pouring the opaque liquid. The only thing is you would have to have the measurements all figured out before hand or else as the liquid in the glass mixed with the other liquid, it would end up more opaque/transparent than what he/she started with. In the video you can clearly see that the end result is more transparent than the liquid he started with. So he ether didn’t show the part where he adds the coloring or thought it wasn’t important.

The coloring added to the liquid would also add to the illusion because it would make people wonder even more about whether or not it was some “Magic” liquid/powder that made the liquid increase.

I have also seen this done with jugs and seen this done in reverse (making water increase from smaller jug to bigger jug and then decrease from bigger jug to smaller jug, finally adding the opaque liquid from the smallest jug to the jug of transparent liquid which was full and only used to fill the 1st and smallest of all the jugs to begin with).

BTW this trick has also been used in scams. So if a person knocks on your door and tries to sell you a product that can turn 1 jug of water into 2 jugs of water. DON’T BUY IT!!! :P

PS: Sorry if I wrote to much or if the text has allot of grammatical errors. I didn’t have time to correct it, was in a hurry seeing as I was tired, it was 4:23 AM and I wanted to get to bed, blah blah blah, etc, etc, etc …

So read it or pass on to the next post but you will be wasting your time if you decide to criticize me or my post.

Thank you for sharing the clip.

Even thought I know this is just a “Magic Trick”, it takes skill to “trick” people without them figuring out exactly what you did and at the same time keep them guessing even if they don’t believe in “Magic”.