Magic Tricks, Card Shuffling, and Dynamic Computer Memories

On November 2, the ACM, Math, and IEEE clubs sponsored a talk by Dr. S. Brent Morris at Penn State Harrisburg.   The talk, entitled “Magic Tricks, Card Shuffling, and Dynamic Computer Memories,” began with a card trick.  This card trick was a staple of Dr. Morris’ repertoire, as he worked his way through college and graduate school as a magician. 

The card trick uses a series of perfect shuffles.  In a perfect shuffle, the cards from two halves of a deck are perfectly interlaces, alternating one card from one half and one card from the other half.  With his interest in both math and magic, Dr. Morris worked out the mathematics that underlies his magic trick.  In fact, the mathematics of the perfect shuffle became the topic for his doctoral dissertation.  He muses that he may have the only doctorate ever awarded in card shuffling.

After he graduated, he went to work for the National Security Agency (NSA).  His first task at the NSA was to design an efficient Dynamic Computer Memory Circuit.  When presented with this problem, a light bulb went off in his head – the mathematics behind the most efficient implementation of this circuit were the exact same mathematics as those for the magic trick.

Dr. Morris has been nominated by the Mathematical Association of America to be one of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Nifty Fifty Speakers.  Given the response of students at Penn State Harrisburg, this nomination was well deserved.

If you would like to be notified about future speakers and events, please send an email to jjb24@psu.edu.

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Jeremy Blum, D.Sc.
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Penn State Harrisburg
777 W. Harrisburg Pike
Middletown, PA 17057
Email:  jjb24@psu.edu
Phone:  (717) 948-6686