MagiCHEM : Science and Magic

Like magic, chemistry operates behind a veil. What we see is only the effect; the cause remains hidden unless we know where to look. The gestures are precise, the timing matters, and a small mistake can collapse the entire illusion. Just as teacher Adrian Allan points out, magic and chemistry share similar principles.

Adrian: "As a chemistry teacher I do science demonstrations, which I realised needed similar skills to do as a magic tricks. They both need practice, a script, visibility, audience interaction followed by a moment of astonishment."

Dr. Adrian Allan, Dr. Adrian Garcia Burgos and Prof. Bill MacDonald form MagiCHEM, a project supported by ScotCHEM and financed by the Royal Society of Chemistry, through which the team engages with school pupils and use magic as a vehicle to show that science is fun and interesting. Besides being scientists, all 3 of them are also performing magicians.

I've recently had the pleasure to sit down with the team and talk about what they do, the success they've hand and how the three of them began this journey.

Biz: Hey Bill! Thank you very much for the opportunity to sit down and talk with you about your project. Can you tell me a bit more about what you do as a team?

Bill: Hey Biz! We perform as a team in Science Festivals across Scotland and also carry out workshops in schools, where students get hands-on experience learning simple magic tricks, but also learn and discuss the science behind them. Magic is increasingly being recognised as having a role in promoting wellbeing, self-confidence, communication and presentation skills. The use of magic to promote learning in a fun and engaging way is yet another example of its value beyond entertainment. 

The team is also training STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Ambassadors to extend the MagiCHEM initiative to a wider group of schools. Adrian Allan, who is a chemistry teacher, has collaborated with Rute Oliveira, a science teacher from Portugal, to develop science magic resources as part of a Science on Stage joint project. 

Biz: How did the idea first spark into your mind to start using magic and science together?

Adrian: I realised that magic tricks could be used to teach science when I used sponge balls to appear as in a pupil's hand to show how atoms come together to form molecules. A selected card that changed colour could be used to show colour changes as a sign of a chemical reaction.

Being a magician myself, I was curious to know in what ways do they use magic tricks to showcase science experiments and if they use any of the tools magicians usually carry, such as playing cards or thumb tips, in order to achieve their experiments.

Bill: We use magic tricks to lead to discussion of science principles. In these cases, the tricks are not explained. The team has had fun creating new ideas or taking existing tricks and adapting them with a science theme.

For example, we have modified Steve Cook’s "The Gamble" so that instead of poker chips we use tokens based on earth, wind, fire and water, the 4 classic elements that the ancient Greeks believed the world was made from. As in The Gamble the freely chosen element is shown to match the token in the spectator’s pocket. This leads to a discussion on modern day chemistry. 

One other thing we've done is print a special deck of cards based on the elements of the periodic table.

Biz: Wow! These look really interesting. I can already imagine a few ways in which you could use these for magic tricks. How do you use them in the classroom?

Bill: We use them as a sort of “tarot” cards in order to read a person’s personality. Each element has a characteristic, eg hydrogen-you’re an air head, gold -you’re valuable etc. Four cards are dealt from a shuffled deck. A reading is given for each card but the 4 cards are displayed to give the full personality eg LuNaTiC as shown (there are many different spelling outcomes).

One other idea which is based on the classic Ambitious Card Trick, is to have a playing card which we say is similar to hydrogen, the lightest element, and then show how this keeps rising to the top of the deck.

If you would like to see more of their experiments and performances, you can check out this video. 

Biz: How has the feedback been from the pupils and their parents?

Bill: The feedback from the school pupils has been very positive. It’s fun and educational for them, but parents and teachers who are also present, are equally fooled and entertained by the magic. 

Biz: What is one memorable moment from your performances? 

Adrian: A memorable moment for me is when I first tried the shrinking and growing head spiral illusion on stage in a theatre and saw everyone's amazed faces when they saw the effect. An interesting thing to note is that this trick, which is based on the waterfall illusion, has been shown to work in fish too. Scientists have managed to identify the neurons in the brain responsible for this illusion which I think is fascinating.

Biz: How did the three of you meet and form the group?

Bill: Adrian Allan was already active in this area of using magic to promote science. He saw a video clip of me using my element cards on twitter and made contact with me. Adrian Garcia Burgos and I know each other from the Edinburgh Magic Circle and share an interest in using magic to promote science. I chair the local branch of the Royal Society of Chemistry and I used funding from that to bring the three of us together to plan a workshop at the Edinburgh Science Festival that was held in 2024. 

At that time I was involved with ScotCHEM which is an organisation that strengthens the links between Universities , Industry and Government in Scotland to promote Chemistry . Public engagement is part of that and Suzanne Halden who is Director of Strategy and Communications in ScotCHEM worked with us to get Royal Society Of Chemistry Outreach Funding to allow us to travel to Science Festivals around Scotland and to buy props.Since then the MagiCHEM team have taken part in Science Festivals around Scotland and carried out workshops in schools and with various youth groups.

Biz: How does it work when you're at a science fair? Do you have a table and people come over to watch experiments?

Bill: Not really. At Science Festivals we put on a “show” which people book to attend. These vary from a hands on workshop type activity to a science themed magic show. On the other hand, in schools and with groups we run small workshops where we show the tricks, explain the science behind them and then let the children / young adults try them hands on. 

Biz: What are your plans moving forward?

Bill: We wish to make the project sustainable. We continue to perform at Science Festivals in Scotland and we are now training science students and postgraduates who are STEM ambassadors in some simple tricks that they can use when they visit schools to promote science. We are currently setting up a MagiCHEM Group chat on Linkedin to allow practitioners to share experience and to be updated on new effect. We also work with teacher groups to promote what we do. We are looking at ways of obtaining further funding to allow us to continue this work and also to provide the materials needed to perform the tricks to STEM Ambassadors and to schools. We would also like to extend the work that we are doing and would be interested in working with magicians/scientists outside of Scotland. We would be very happy to be contacted by interested parties to share what we do.

As such, MagiCHEM demonstrates that the divide between science and magic is thinner than we tend to assume. Both disciplines rely on structure, rehearsal, and an understanding of human perception. In the classroom or on stage, the moment of astonishment becomes a tool—not an end in itself, but a doorway to curiosity and discussion.

By combining chemistry with prestidigitation (do people still use this word?), the MagiCHEM team reframes learning as an active experience rather than a passive one. The effects capture attention, but it is the method, the explanation, and the invitation to participate that leave a lasting impression on the young learners. I can see this being very effective on getting participants attentive during workshops and curious to learn more science and magic. I'm sure that if more teachers would use magic in their classroom, like the MagiCHEM team or Eddie Woo, we'd have less pupils / students on their phone during class.

If any teachers / magicians would like to come in contact with the MagiCHEM team, you can do so by emailing Bill MacDonald over here.