Younis Zaiden: Mathematics is my passion; it’s been like that a long time ago, since I’ve been a child. As a grew up and got my PhD, teaching and helping others learn math, I got interested in using simple math rules, very basic algebra to do some cool stuff. A student from high school can do all the algebra that was involved. It ended up being some cool tricks that I hope peopled enjoyed. I like the idea that it does not involve complicated math. At the same time, the output is kind of neat. With mathematics there are two questions: there’s how it works, and why it works. The part how it works is take this number, this number…by the time you do that: that’s how it works. Why it works is to prove, to justify why does it really work? I go home and start working: why does it work? Some of them took me longer, some of them were quick basic algebra. Most almost all of them were basic algebra. It’s just picking the right equations, right numbers until you figure it out and see exactly how it works. After that I try my best to adjust. It can always be better: this tricks works this way, what if I change this number to this and make it look even better. Instead of choosing 1 volunteer let me choose 3 and do 3 cards at the same time instead of doing 1. It will be more interesting. How do I make the math work? This is the kind of thing I was doing. Doesn’t take me a long time, to tell the truth. Not a long time as far as the math goes, sometimes the design takes some times. How do I make it look interesting and attractive? As far as math is concerned, the applications and real world applications, but for this topic of mathemagics, it’s just cool tricks. It’s cool to use your knowledge to apply to something that is beneficial to the world as far as applications go, but at the same time something that is fun, has nothing to do with applications, just cool and fun for people to enjoy. First of all I try to emphasize that this is basic math. Don’t think that because I have a PhD in math that I must have done some complicated stuff. It’s not complicated; a student in MAT 105 can do all the calculations needed to do almost all of them. And I’ll be happy to share this experience with my students. In my office, they are able to stop by and I reveal my secrets, that’s math, that’s not magic. This kind of brings to the attention the importance of math even in things that are cool and not coursework or anything but at the same time it’s cool and something they can do. That’s my part. Magicians never reveal their secrets, that’s what they say. I do because mine is mathemagics and I love to share math with people, so that’s fine with me.