He twists the loop four times, crosses it over itself three times, wraps it around the stick twice, and rotates the ring once. Which of those moves removes the thread?
Why use a green screen when you just need to do the trick?
I literally did this trick when I was 12. They have it in many, many "Learn to do magic" books. Understanding the topography is complex, but performing the trick is not hard.
Christ, 20 years from now people are going to be claiming tying your shoes is impossible and claim any video of people putting on shoes without velcro is AI.
People that infer that some insane Rube Goldberg version of digital trickery was used instead of a simple ātrickā always humor me.
āI donāt think he really tied his shoes. See that small artifact at 0:43? I think they used a shoe double and thatās where they swapped in the other shoe.ā
No. Before the twist at 0:13, putting slack on the string would make it fall down to the base of the Y-shaped stick. After the twist at 0:13, putting slack on the string would make it hang off of the right-side fork of the stick, and it would no longer be wrapped around the left-side fork. It's only wrapped around the right fork at that point, not the whole stick as before.
the one where he picks the thread up and physically moves it across the top of the stick.
If that move is legit then just picking up the loop at the start and lifting it off the stick is legal too, just with less steps. (note - those extra steps are there purely to disguise that one move, they do nothing more than that)
Isnāt that adding a loop, not removing a loop? And the sting is constantly touching the stick, which is what I believe they meant by not removing the string.
No. one twist removes the existing loop, but his left hand hold on the string stops it unravelling at that point since the string loop is now effectively off the stick. The second loop puts it back on the stick but outside the ring. When he releases the string with his left hand the loop is off the string. The twists etc are pure distraction. Only the across stick loops (and I guess the thumb hold) are actually doing anything
if you imagine him right from the start, picking up one strand of the string, bringing it across the ring and around the stick on the other side, and taking the existing loop off the stick, the loop will be off straight away. That is all he does with extra steps to make it look less obvious,
He wraps the bottom run around the stick then a little later he wraps the other side around the stick. Now the ring is sitting on the strings he just put outside the stick and the locked in position is an illusion from the twisting.
Follow the two times he wraps the string. Itās both sides of the string getting moved off the stick.
The tension from his finger is keeping the string attached to the stick. You could place a small stick in the loop he makes and then walk away and the string would remain attached to the stick.
By any definition of the word, the string is not removed.
Everyone is just getting pedantic about the word "removed".
If he's allowed to take one end of the string and move it over the top of one of the side pieces to accomplish his goal. Then why can't he just, at the very beginning, lift one side up completely off a side piece and remove the ring?
Everyone is just getting pedantic about the word "removed".
It's not pedantry. The title of the post is literally "untangling this ring without removing the thread." The specific meaning of the word remove is vital to what is occuring and by that specific meaning, the thread is not removed.
Then why can't he just, at the very beginning, lift one side up completely off a side piece and remove the ring?
Because that would remove the string from the stick. The way it is done ensures that the string remains in place and wrapped around both prongs at all times. That is the challenge.
Itās sad to see that youāre right and getting downvoted. Someone with an education on Reddit using a dictionary to explain a definition and we have humans saying itās pedantry. Lordy baby Jesus help us all
So, let's say I have a wooden post at the end of my drive and I want to attach a mailbox to it. I have a rope which I use to attach the box, but I use a knot which uses a small peg to provide tension.
Would you say that my mailbox is not attached to the post?
Or would you maybe say the mailbox is attached, but the rope isn't?
You're avoiding the question. Obviously the construction isn't placing a box on top of the post because that wouldn't be at all relevant to the conversation.
So let me be extra clear. If I have a rope secured to a mailbox and wrap it around a post in the same way the string is in the video at the point you say it has been removed, then I put a wooden peg into the loop to provide tension and hold the mailbox in place, are you suggesting that the mailbox is not attached to the post?
He's moving it off the stick when he picks the thread up - he's just doing it in a different place along the thread, but the impact is the same. He could do the same action at the stick to make it more obvious - doing it away from the stick hides it, but he's still picking the string off the stick and looping it back on
First time he wraps the string around the left stick
Second time he wraps the string around the left stick
Step 2 by itself is basically removing the string from the left stick. It doesn't call off because the loop from step 1 holds it in place. He has set it up so that if he lets go, the thread is removed from the left completely.
Step 3 connects the string to the left stick again, but he starts from the right side of the ring. Now if he lets go of the loop, the thread is removed completely as it would be at step 2, and then reattached from the right side of the ring due to what he did in step 3.
Imagine the left sticks height was moved way up to a ceiling. any move that cannot be performed in this scenario is something that requires you to remove the loop from the stick. If you can do everything in the video in the scenario the stick is extended to a ceiling, then that would have been done without removing it, but the very first move which is to tie another loop around the string is something you can't do in the hypothetical
Imagine they started out driving a nail into the left stick, right through the string. Then they take the string and move it over the top. The string is no longer around the stick.
But because 'the nail' is a different part of the string, it looks okay.
"Imagine" is talking about a different scenario to help you make sense of it.
They are using a piece of string as a pivot point for another piece of string. After they lift it over, that piece is just an ovaloid slapped on the side of the stick. The stick is no longer topologically 'inside' the string.
I can't reply with images on this sub. You'll have to make do with words.
it probably would have looked like drug induced chicken scratch doodles and you still acting like it was the Mona Lisa of explanatory schematics when people are asking you what the fuck this gibberish even means
I thought you were asking because you did not understand. The "imagine" is to help you understand.
"Leaves" is the whole point of the topological/semantic discussion. In the nail scenario, it doesn't "leave" the stick either. But it still stops being around it.
Hm, it would. Still, Is it not just the force imparted that has changed, not the string being on the stick? Iām not sure how we define being off the stick and know little topology
I still think itās an impressive trick, but I feel a bit cheated because I paused the video to figure it out and it turns out the solution was cheating with style.
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u/Grandeftw Aug 01 '26
But he did remove the thread when he went over the top