Deal shuffles with an eight-card deck and a stella octangula
M. Lynch · Teaching Mathematics and its Applications An International Journal of the IMA · 1999
The invariants of the actions of a class of shuffles on an eight-card deck are investigated by recognising that the group of such shuffles is isomorphic to a subgroup of the symmetry group of a geometric object called a stella octangula. This isomorphism is used to gain insight into how certain card “tricks” are natural consequences of the shuffles.