About the Museum of Hoaxes
The Museum of Hoaxes is dedicated to promoting knowledge about hoaxes. (Click here for opening hours, etc.) On our blog we post about whatever dubious-sounding claims come across our path on a day-by-day basis. In our archives we have hundreds of articles about the most fascinating and notorious deceptions throughout history, from the middle ages to the present.
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Derren Brown Predicts UK National Lottery
Last Wednesday Derren Brown performed a trick in which he appeared to predict the results of the UK national lottery on live TV. This immediately led to much speculation about how he did it. Of course, he didn't disclose his "prediction" until after the lottery results had been announced, which makes it meaningless as a prediction. But it was still a clever publicity stunt.On Friday Brown revealed the secret of the trick, or rather he pretended to. He didn't actually reveal anything at all. While coyly refusing to commit to an explanation, he implied that he predicted it by averaging out numbers generated by a group of 24 volunteers who used automatic writing to come up with results. Frankly, it would have been better if he had offered no explanation at all, rather than promoting some kind of mumbo-jumbo, pseudoscience explanation.
Thedrilldown.com offers a summary of theories about how the trick was done. The most compelling theory is that he used split-screen technology to allow an assistant to come onstage, unseen, and arrange the balls in the correct order.