Making Magic Paper

Science is perhaps the most fun when it is seemingly doing magic! Today's spot takes advantage of this perception by using some common chemicals to make "magic paper". Of course, paper itself is created through a lot of chemistry - and there are links at the bottom of this page that will help you learn to make recycled paper yourself - but this piece of paper is different.

To make it you will need rubber cement, talcum powder and a piece of white paper (like from a printer for a computer.) Take one side of the paper and "paint" rubber cement on it. Let it dry and paint a second layer on top of the first one. After the second layer dries, sprinkle the talcum powder over the rubber cement to make it white. This way, when you show both sides of the paper to the audience, they will not be able to see the difference. This part of the "show" needs to be done well in advance. In our experience, once made this magic paper works fine for 2 days or so before the rubber cement has dried out too much.

For the paper we used on TV we only did the center of the sheet this way. That made it easier to pull apart the edges on the air. It does, however, limit the number of times that you can cut the paper and have it still work.

To do the magic trick itself. Take the piece of paper you made. Show both sides to your audience (the TV camera in our case). Fold the paper in half with the rubber cement part on the inside. Cut a straight line along the fold - all the way through the paper. When you open the paper again, it will appear to be whole (so long as you don't pull on the bottom half too much). You can actually do the cutting a few times, but be sure to cut thin strips so people don't see that the paper is getting a lot shorter each time.

Links.

Making magic paper - the site where we found this demonstration

Make recycked paper - this site from Beakmans world gives you the step to make recycled paper yourself.