Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site oakhill.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!greipa!pesnta!amd!vecpyr!lll-crg!dual!mordor!ut-sally!oakhill!davet From: davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel) Newsgroups: net.nlang.india,net.religion,net.philosophy,net.physics Subject: Comment about Uri Geller Message-ID: <436@oakhill.UUCP> Date: Fri, 24-May-85 12:23:16 EDT Article-I.D.: oakhill.436 Posted: Fri May 24 12:23:16 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 27-May-85 00:14:32 EDT References: <470@nmtvax.UUCP> <1289@amdcad.UUCP> <1899@ut-sally.UUCP> <1903@ut-sally.UUCP> <1595@aecom.UUCP> <611@digi-g.UUCP> Reply-To: davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel) Distribution: net Organization: Motorola Inc. Austin, Tx Lines: 75 Xref: watmath net.nlang.india:396 net.religion:6958 net.philosophy:1815 net.physics:2513 Summary: In article <611@digi-g.UUCP> brian@digi-g.UUCP (brian) writes: > >Sure. The same way Uri Geller (remember him?) used to bend spoons. >Fraudulently. Any professional magicians present? > >Merlyn Leroy, > who can bend his mind with a fork. Uri Geller has been known to fake things quite often. However, I would love to see a professional magician do what some friends of mine have seem him do. He was giving a talk in Houston and agreed to come to Austin to be interviewed. My friends drove him here from Houston (140 miles) and decided to eat at their favorite Mexican place (La Tapatia for those here in Austin.) The waitress led them to the table and left. Quite unexpectedly, one of my friends noticed that his fork in the table in front of him was MOVING! It was bending slowly to an acute angle. He made a yelp and commented on what was going on. Then the person accross from him noticed that his fork was bending as well. The waitress soon came back in - saw the bent forks and started apologizing while picking them up saying she was sorry she didn't notice the silverware was bad before she showed them the table. One of my friends quickly grabbed his fork and asked her if he could keep it. She relented (and probably thought he was nuts.) Now I presume Uri could have dropped some sort of chemical on the forks while he was passing by since no one was prepared to watch for any shenanigans. He certainly wasn't handling the forks while they were bending as any magician would have to do. Also a magician could not make the forks keep bending while not under some constant pressure. Fork substitution is a remote possibility but its hard to believe he goes around with all these forks hidden in his pants. Finally, I doubt if any chemist/physicist/scientist could show me a fork which after it leaves their presence would start bending a minute later and continue to bend for a time without any indication of acid, heat, or deformity to the lateral width (cross section) of the metal in the fork. To make this more bizzare, that same evening Uri was caught putting a picture into an aquarium. He was going to claim he had materialized it, I suppose. His ego seems to demand that he be proving his powers to others, even if he needs to fake it. There were several other things that happened which are just as bizzare. I will only mention one more I would like to see a magician do. As I said before Uri was giving a talk in Houston. It happened that the then Mayor of Houston decided on the spur of the moment to give a key-to-the-city to Uri. He was at his office when he decided this and had his aid bring one along as they were to meet Uri at theAstodome where the talk was scheduled. The mayor met Uri outside and told him he would receive the key-to-the-city. The key was in an elongated cardboard box with a clear plastic top. Uri told the mayor to put his hand over the box (it had not been opened yet) and then held his own hand over the mayor's. After a short time Uri told the mayor to remove his hand. The key was noticibly bent and everyone was quite shocked. Substitution before the event is the only way a magician could have accomp- lished the same thing. (Nobody seemed to have examined the key before it was presented.) I find it highly unlikely that Uri had any way of 1) knowing beforehand that he would have gotten the key 2) arranged to have a bent duplicate of the key-to-the-city made and ) somehow switched it with the real thing. Obviously 3) is easy to do and 2) is not easy but possible if you have several days to prepare. Item 1) above is the real clincher since the mayor did not decide to do this until the last minute. Uri has bent some metal in a lab and the bend-point was examined with an electron microscope revealing a fracture which cannot normally be created. Of course scientist can be as fooled as anyone else. But a EM is a little harder to fool. I'll give more details if there is interest. Uri's a good showman and its easy to dismiss everything he does as fakery. But I think there is more to it than that. Dave Trissel {ihnp4,seismon how they think Uri could have aco "close your eyes and mind but it won't go away"