My family and I recently saw two movies featuring magicians, The Prestige and The Illusionist. Both were intriguing stories told in intriguing ways. Both stories took place a little over a century ago during magic's Golden Era. And both brought back memories of my own childhood fascination with magic and magicians.

My first brush with a live magician occurred when I was in elementary school where an aspiring magician came to perform . One trick involved taking a supposedly regular deck of cards and making hundreds of cards appear as he fanned three and made ten, fanned five and made twenty.  He kept fanning the cards and flipping them all over so that literally countless playing cards blanketed the floor.

When the performance ended all the kids swarmed the magician.  But I was fascinated with the cards and quickly ran up to examine them. As I held a card in my hand, it slid apart into three cards. Amazed, I bent down and picked up more cards, sliding them apart in my hands. This was not a normal deck of playing cards.

I was soon reading every magic book in the library. I asked for and received magic tricks for Christmas and birthdays. My dad built props for tricks like the levitating woman. (I only levitated a doll.)  My mom sewed a magic bag that I used to make eggs appear out of nowhere. Eventually I had marked cards, shaved cards and other kinds of magic decks wherein I was able to turn all the cards into hearts and diamonds, or make all the cards blank with a simple presto. I even put on a few magic shows at family reunions and for kids in the neighborhood.

The reality is, however, that what often appears to be magic is really nothing more than science. Many tricks involve manipulation of perceptions. Tricks requiring sleight of hand involve a measure of skill but the skills can be practiced and learned. Other tricks involve subterfuge, deception or misdirection of some kind.  Bottom line: there is  an explanation for everything. Some tricks only involve basic principles of chemistry to achieve their effect.

There is one rule of thumb for magicians: you are never supposed to reveal how you do your tricks, but I am going to share three seemingly magical wonders here and tell you how they are done. Hopefully no one in the magician’s trade union will give me grief about this.

The Amazing Cold Flow Fluid
            I first performed this trick at the Duluth Convention Center in 1987. I do not recall the occasion, but AMSOIL had a booth there for some kind of motorsports show or home show probably. 
            The Effect: Take four individual quart bottles of motor oil, each one third to one half full.  Place the quart bottles in a container and bury them up to the shoulders in dry ice. Place a dowel or long Popsicle stick in each oil bottle.  After a short while, make a little magical hocus pocus and when you lift the Popsicle sticks from the first three, you can lift the whole quart containers out of the dry ice because the oil is nearly solid. Then, take your magic wand and wave it over the fourth, and have a volunteer lift the Popsicle stick. It slips right out of the oil!
            How It Is Done: This is a simple trick to perform. You simply place conventional motor oil in the first three containers, but in the fourth you have a premium synthetic oil.  Most synthetic oils will remain fluid to fifty below or more, a definite benefit in Minnesota. 

The Remarkable Disappearing Friction
            The Effect: You measure the miles per gallon in a vehicle and find that it gets 20 miles per gallon.  You then remove the oil, wave your magic wand over the car and fill it up with motor oil again. To the amazement of all, the car now gets 22 miles per gallon. 
            How It Is Done: When you put the motor oil in the second time, you use synthetic motor oil to replace the thickened conventional petroleum oil. Because the synthetic oil  has a lower coefficient of friction and better viscosity retention, the engine gets more power out of the same amount of ignition.

The Incredible Drain Interval
            The Effect: You take a car and drive three thousand miles and then change the oil. With the new oil you drive 75,000 miles for three years with no engine damage.
            How It Is Done: This trick was first documented in 1978 in SAE Paper 780951 by D.B. Barton, J.A. Murphy and K.W. Gardner, “Synthesized Lubricants Provide Exceptional Extended Drain Passenger Car Performance.”  Of course we do not recommend three-year drain intervals today, but the long drain capabilities of synthetic oils are well established.

Do You Believe In Magic?
            I once heard a speaker note that if he were transported back in time holding a cassette player, the people of a thousand years ago (besides laughing at your funny clothes) would be astounded when spoken language or music came out of it. But would it be magic? Hardly.
            As the achievements of science are applied to daily life, the benefits truly can be amazing. In our own industry these things should not surprise us too much. These are simply some of the properties of synthetic motor oil.

It doesn’t take a Blackstone, Kreskin, Copperfield or Houdini to impress your customers. Just show them the facts. No sleight of hand required.