How man makes fork appear to levitate

Mike Krumboltz

A grown man shouldn't mock the laws of physics with a dining utensil, you say. His hubris will anger the silverware gods, you say.

Watch this clip anyway, we say. It's amazing.

In the video, shot by David Roa and starring his friend Richard Huang, a fork is made to spin while the pair eat at a Seattle-area restaurant.

How? With the help of magnets. Huang told Yahoo News the restaurant (like many others) uses magnetic garbage lids that help prevent loss. Should someone accidentally throw a piece of silverware in the garbage, it will simply stick to the lid.

Roa told Yahoo News the fork Huang had "must have been on that magnet for an extended period of time because of how powerful of a magnet it was."

Roa joked that normally explaining tricks would "break the magician's code," but because Huang has no magical aspirations, he figured an explainer was in order.

Huang told Yahoo News, "With a little finesse of the wrist, I got my fork rotating pretty quickly, and so David said he had to get it on video."

He's been surprised by the reception. "It was just a spontaneous illusion I stumbled upon while at brunch with my friends. David thought it definitely had potential to go viral, but I didn't think much of it."

David was right. After posting the video to Reddit, it quickly became one of the site's most popular clips.

Follow Mike Krumboltz on Twitter (@mikekrumboltz).