The classic demonstration illustrating Lenz's law by dropping a magnet through a copper pipe is presented using household aluminum foil right out of the box. Then comes the surprise. The teacher presents an aluminum foil cylinder with a missing lengthwise slice (cut before class). Will the demonstration still work? Students are amazed at the result, described in this paper and included in our accompanying video (Ruiz 2018 Video: Lenz's law with aluminum foil http://mjtruiz.com/ped/aluminum/).