Shadowing Practice: Revealing 5 Secret Magic Tricks With Science - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Today we're gonna be teaching you five magic tricks you can do yourself at home to impress your friends.
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Actually even better than magic tricks because they use science like a levitating orb.
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Oh Emma needs her ladle back.
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These are tricks that I've never seen before
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and they're gonna be performed by our former middle school science teacher and even former-er middle school magician, Science Bob Flugfelder.
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Here we go.
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Trick number one involved nothing more than a metal ring, Bob's finger and some uncomfortable prolonged eye contact.
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Ready?
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Yeah.
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What the heck was that?
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There's no hinge on here.
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Let me just try it.
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One, two...
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Okay, maybe there's...
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Oh no!
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So this is a trick to use as persistence of vision.
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We have build box toys that utilize persistence of vision.
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That's true.
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The coin spinner.
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You spin the coin and it looks like Saturn has rings, but really it's just a circle on one side and rings on the other.
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I'm literally just pushing my finger.
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So at one point my pinky looks like that, but you don't see that.
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You can do it just right.
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One, two, three.
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Wow.
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Resistance of vision relies on the fact
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that your eyes can only send a limited number of visual pictures to the brain each second.
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Because the pinky bend happens so fast, there's a good chance your eyes never sent that part of the trick to your brain.
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Which means your brain has to assume the ring just went through your finger, even though it knows that's really not possible.
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And that's how you can pull out this mind-blowing trick like I do.
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Huh?
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Huh?
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Nate's laughing, so I don't think it worked after maybe a bit more practice.
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Oh dang it, stop laughing!
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For trick number two, Bob threw down not one, not two, but three cups, and then filled just one of them with water, at which point he gave me a challenge.
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I will scramble up the cup, try to remember which one has the water in it.
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Easy.
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In this one, here we go, and mixing, and mixing, and mixing, and mixing, and mixing.
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Okay, one, two, or three.
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Easy, one.
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Let's see if you are right.
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You are, hopefully you got that at home.
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That means we're going to the next level.
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It's in this thinner one.
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Okay, yeah.
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Here we go, and there we go, there we go.
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Mixing, mixing.
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Let's do that.
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One, two, three.
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I feel like that was even easier, Bob.
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Number two, thank you very much.
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If you're right, you are.
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One more time, one more time.
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It's in this one.
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Okay.
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Going, going, going, going.
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All right, one, two, or three.
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Two!
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Let's see if you're right.
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What?
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One or three.
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Three?
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Are you right?
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No. So here's the weird thing, there never was any water.
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Believe it or not, the science behind this is the same science that's used in diapers.
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Whoa.
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You need to get your hands on some diapers.
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Go and say, hey, can I borrow a diaper?
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Yeah, that's not weird.
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You will immediately see all this white powder coming out of that.
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And this white powder turns out to be a liquid absorbing polymer, which explains why it's in diapers.
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So Bob grabbed some clear cups to show me the secret
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was putting a little bit of the polymer into just one of the cups.
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And then after transferring water between the two empty cups, poured it into the polymer cup.
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After which...
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That water absorbing polymer starts going to work.
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And after just a little bit of time, no water in there.
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No water in that one and no water in that one.
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Whoa.
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That is wild. And magic.
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And after a quick clean up of the mess Bob's diaper left, we got to trick number three, which involved a big bottle of water containing a tiny packet of ketchup.
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Bring your hand near it and it will drop.
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It takes the warmth from your hand and it will change the density.
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There it is.
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Bob, that's not a valid explanation.
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Are you saying I was lying?
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Yes, I'm saying you were lying.
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Traditions lie a lot.
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It has nothing to do with the heat from your hand.
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Totally made that up.
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What it does have to do with is water pressure.
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So if I want this to sink, all I gotta do is actually squeeze this.
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Almost imperceivable squeeze will make that go down.
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This is called the Cartesian diver.
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Water can't compress, but the little air bubble inside of the ketchup can compress.
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So when I squeeze this, that changes the density and that causes it to sink until I release it.
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So that means the combination of the ketchup, the packet and that air bubble is really close to the density of water.
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It's almost neutrally buoyant, right?
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Almost.
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It turns out there's a secret ingredient to this trick.
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Because if you put the ketchup packet in regular water...
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You can see how this one's not floating the way you eat it.
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Yeah, it's not really floating.
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So you just add some salt and shake it up.
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Yeah.
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It's gonna increase the density of the water.
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Sure.
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Oh, now it definitely floats.
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And now it's floating.
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See, there it goes.
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Wow.
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And because salt water is denser than regular water, ketchup will float on it as long as the air bubble stays big.
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But when you squeeze the bottle, water pressure pushes all those little molecules of air in the bubble closer together.
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And that slight change in volume increases the density of the ketchup packet compared to the water around it, and just like magic, the packet sinks.
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Force.
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Now that Bob had busted out the force, it was time for trick number four, where he was going to show off further Jedi powers using a balloon,
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a ring cut from a plastic bag, and his own hair.
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What this is doing is putting a negative charge on it.
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And it's making your hair look cool.
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And then, if all goes well, they will.
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Isn't that cool?
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Oh, it's a balloon halo!
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Isn't that neat?
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You don't need to be a Jedi to pull this off, thanks to electrons.
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All materials in the world contain tiny particles called electrons, which have a negative charge.
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Certain materials, like plastic bags and wiffle ball bats, are able to pick up negative charges from other materials, like your hair, which gives away the charge easily.
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But it turns out that negative charges absolutely don't like hanging out together, And so they'll repel away from each other just like negative sides of a magnet repel each other.
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And so if one of those objects with a negative charge is light enough, like say a ring cut from a plastic bag,
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the repelling force is strong enough relative to gravity to push it away and make it float.
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Oh, it's like a UFO.
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Can I try?
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Yeah.
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Do I gotta use your hair?
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Sure.
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Cut!
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Oh yeah!
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There ya go.
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No way.
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I can move it up and down.
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I go to left, I go forward, I come back.
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I am an actual wizard.
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That or its electrons repelling each other.
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And feel free to get creative with the shapes you cut out.
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It's a jellyfish.
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Alright jellyfish, we're going for a walk.
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After taking a brief intermission so Bob could tend to my jellyfish thing.
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My face!
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We moved on to the next trick which only involves a pen and a water bottle.
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This doesn't always work.
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I'm gonna try it without the cap this time, see if it works better.
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Alright, here we go.
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One, two, three.
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Whoa!
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Check it out.
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What the heck just happened?
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Okay, if you squeeze it, that must be it.
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You squeeze it.
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Wait, nothing's happening.
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Bob!
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So this was a brain trick.
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Let's talk a little bit about light diffraction.
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This works because the sides are round.
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And so this acts as a lens.
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And so, when we tip it over, I can't see that pen at all.
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Then we bring the pen up, I can turn it.
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Your eyes are now on the pen.
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So you're not even thinking about one being behind.
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Now I take advantage of light diffraction the other way.
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So I can slip this away and all of your attention is on that.
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But let's see if the final trick could beat it, which started promisingly with another balloon.
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Now, if I can put this very pointy skewer through this balloon without popping it, will you buy me an ice cream?
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I'll buy you 12 ice creams, Bob.
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Excellent.
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Alright, here we go.
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Whoa.
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What?
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Here we go.
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What the heck?
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Maybe I'll go chocolate?
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What the heck?
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That feels like it shouldn't be possible.
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True, because your brain says, hey, if there's a hole in something, it's probably leaking.
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Yeah.
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But now we're using, once again, the power of the polymer.
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Can I make a guess?
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I noticed you didn't fully fill this up.
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Correct.
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So it's like the rubber's a little bit thicker, and it almost creates a seal.
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You also poked it at the bottom, where I know the rubber's thicker.
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Yeah.
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And then if you don't want to spoil it, you can just take it out.
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There you go.
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They never have a chance to check it out.
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Bob, show me this trick could also be performed with a big freezer bag and an absolute rainbow's worth of colored pencils.
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Pick whatever spot you want.
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Really?
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Relatively fast and confident.
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I can be fast and confident, Bob.
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Okay.
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The way you stepped to the side, though, that was not a confident sidestep.
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I'm not moving.
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Alright, here we go.
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Three, two, one.
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Pukka!
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Spoiler alert, this was fun.
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That's trippy.
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It's because your brain thinks if something is full of water and it has a hole in it, it's supposed to leak.
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The polymers are sealing that off.
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In fact, oh no. Maybe it was too fun.
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Oh no!
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We've tried to leak!
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Alright, so that means I moved a little on that one.
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For our viewers, see how many of these you can get in a single bag without that.
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Tag us at Crunch Labs.
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Winner gets 12 ice creams.
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Alright, well there's a bunch of science tricks that are better than magic, and now I have a final science trick of my own.
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Back to work, Bob.
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Yes, sir.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 218 sentences and 1767 words to shadow. The speech runs for 8:59. The speaker talks fast, about 197 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 less common words from the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
- trick /ˈtɹɪk/ (noun) — Something designed to fool, dupe, outsmart, mislead or swindle.
- float /fləʊt/ (verb) — To be supported by a fluid of greater density (than the object).
- squeeze /skwiːz/ (verb) — To apply pressure (to something) from two or more sides at once.
- polymer /ˈpɑ.lɪ.mɚ/ (noun) — A long or larger molecule consisting of a chain or network of many repeating units, formed by chemically bonding together many identical or similar small…
- density /ˈdɛn.sə.ti/ (noun) — A measure of the mass of matter contained by a unit volume.
- packet /ˈpæk.ɪt/ (noun) — A small pack or package; a little bundle or parcel
- bubble /ˈbʌbəl/ (noun) — A spherically contained volume of air or other gas in a liquid, commonly a soapy liquid.
- heck /hɛk/ — Hell.
- balloon /bəˈlun/ (noun) — An inflatable buoyant object, often (but not necessarily) round and flexible.
- whoa /woʊ/ — Stop (especially when commanding a horse or imitative thereof); calm down; slow down.
- finger /ˈfɪŋɡɚ/ (noun) — A slender jointed extremity of the human hand, (often) exclusive of the thumb, and the corresponding part, irrespective of including a thumb, in many other…
- sink /ˈsɪŋk/ (verb) — To descend or submerge (or to cause to do so) into a liquid or similar substance.
- leak /liːk/ (noun) — A crack, crevice, fissure, or hole which admits water or other fluid, or lets it escape.
- electrons (noun) — The digital or electronic version of a document.
- thick /θɪk/ (adjective) — Relatively great in extent from one surface to the opposite in its smallest solid dimension.
Phrasal verbs you will hear
- do with (verb) — Only used in to do with
- turn out (verb) — To end up; to result.
- come back (verb) — To return to a place.
- cut out (verb) — To refrain from (doing something, using something etc.), to stop or cease (doing something).
- get in (verb) — To get into or inside something, literally or figuratively.
- give away (verb) — To make a gift of (something).
- go down (verb) — To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one.
- go for (verb) — To try for, to attempt to reach.
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 35 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, gonna, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thick /θɪk/, thin /ˈθɪn/, warmth /wɔɹmθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, shake /ˈʃeɪk/, jellyfish /ˈd͡ʒɛliˌfɪʃ/, diffraction /dɪˈfɹækʃən/, intermission /ɪntɚˈmɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, uncomfortable /ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/, ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/, intermission /ɪntɚˈmɪʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like trick, float, squeeze.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be performed · is called |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've never seen · We've tried |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.