Speed is of the Essence

Is the hand, after all, "quicker than the eye?" As magicians, we tend to assume that such a statement is false, just a cliche. Sometimes we assume that laymen believe it. Edwin Sach, in the introduction to the third chapter of his book "Sleight of Hand", says: "The prevailing idea with the public is that the conjurer moves things about from place to place before one's very eyes, but with such extreme rapidity as to avoid detection. This, I say, is the prevailing idea, and long may it continue to be so, since it is the very thing an audience is supposed to imagine. The learner, however, must, from the outset, dismiss such an impression from his mind as untenable, even for an instant. If he has a lurking opinion that a hand can be moved without the motion being detected, let him practice at moving, say, a cork or a piece of sugar, a distance of only one short inch. Let him practice for 12 months to begin with, and I will guarantee that at the end of that period, he is no nearer the consumation of the feat than he was at the commencement. If time hangs heavily on his hands, let him go practice, say, for five or ten years. The result will be precisely similar."

Whoever reads the above quote, magician or layman, will get the idea without the need to carry out the frustrating experiment. Deep inside, laymen know that the hand cannot make a motion so fast that it cannot be seen. Yet in certain cases, upon being thoroughly fooled, they exclaim, "Very Fast!"

The truth is that a movement of the hand, or of anything else at a natural pace, such as that of opening the arms in a gesture, can easily be too fast to be followed by the human eye in sharp focus throughout. Needless to say, speed is relative.

The human eye, as it follows an object that moves at a certain relative speed, moves in small stages, focusing on several points of the path, shifting directly from one such point to the next. This sudden, involuntary movement is known in ophtalmological terms as "saccadic movement." You can observe this very clearly when you sit in a train with your back to the platform and watch the eyes of the passengers in front of you as the train begins to move. Their eyes will focus on something, willingly or not. When the object in focus moves out of range, the eyes click back and catch something new to focus on. The eyes are simply unable to remain indifferent to visual stimuli.

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