Sum Total

Sum Total

The Kruskal count (also known as Kruskal's principle and Dynkin's card trick, Dynkin–Kruskal count, or shift coupling) is a probabilistic concept and card trick rediscovered by the mathematician Martin David Kruskal in the early 1970s as a side-product while working on another problem. It was published by his friend Martin Gardner and magician Karl Fulves in 1975. It is related to a similar trick published by magician Alexander F. Kraus in 1957 as Sum total and later called Kraus principle.Besides uses as a card trick, the underlying phenomenon has applications in cryptography, code-breaking, code self-synchronization and others.

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