Thread: Number stuff

here is something I recently remembered from my Uni days when we used to play maths games



you may notice all the rows, columns, diagonals add up to 34

anybody know the origin?

Green to the first

Chinese literature dating from as early as 650 BC tells the legend of Lo Shu or "scroll of the river Lo". In ancient China there was a huge flood. The great king Yu tried to channel the water out to sea where then emerged from the water a turtle with a curious figure/pattern on its shell; circular dots of numbers which were arranged in a three by three grid pattern such that the sum of the numbers in each row, column and diagonal was the same.

China

Johnny Ball think of a number.

nobody correct yet

it has a fascinating history, but no turtles involved (that was a 3x3)

The first magic squares of order 5 and 6 appear in an encyclopedia from Baghdad circa 983 AD, the Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa (the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity);

The order-4 magic square in Albrecht Dürer's engraving Melencolia I is believed to be the first seen in European art. It is very similar to Yang Hui's square, which was created in China about 250 years before Dürer's time. The sum 34 can be found in the rows, columns, diagonals, each of the quadrants, the center four squares, and the corner squares(of the 4x4 as well as the four contained 3x3 grids). This sum can also be found in the four outer numbers clockwise from the corners (3+8+14+9) and likewise the four counter-clockwise (the locations of four queens in the two solutions of the 4 queens puzzle [18]), the two sets of four symmetrical numbers (2+8+9+15 and 3+5+12+14), the sum of the middle two entries of the two outer columns and rows (5+9+8+12 and 3+2+15+14), and in four kite or cross shaped quartets (3+5+11+15, 2+10+8+14, 3+9+7+15, and 2+6+12+14).

India in the Parshvanath Jain temple

That particular magic square:

Albrecht Dürer, 1514 ....The Melancholie Engraving....

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^^ Sorry Thetym already posted.....

Originally Posted by Necron99

China

Of course.
Originators of most everything, not withholding contributions and influence from other Asian brothers.

Is this that game Suduko that lots of kids play?

No, there are similarities

Suduko works with the total number 9, and single numerals

The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 sub-grids that compose the grid (also called "boxes", "blocks", "regions", or "sub-squares") contains all of the digits from 1 to 9.

I like Sudoko, play it a lot

Magic squares are more compilcated