Levitation: Physics and Psychology in the Service of Deception

About this book

Levitation tells the story of the most dazzling gravity-defying illusion ever performed on stage, and features a cast of characters that seems almost too good to be true: John Neville Maskelyne, the very proper scientist-magician and the trick's inventor; Harry Kellar, the brash American who fails to buy the illusion, so steals it instead; Howard Thurston, the handsome and charismatic performer who inherits the act from Kellar; and Guy Jarrett, the rough-and-tumble engineer who perfects the levitation and guides us through the unfolding drama. But true it is -- you'll never look at magic, or the mysteries of science -- the same way again.