Magic math puzzle solved at last
Dawn Walton
Globe and Mail, Canada
_________________
Long before the Sudoku number puzzle became the crack cocaine of brain teasers, a bored Benjamin Franklin jotted down a couple of much more complex number puzzles of his own.
But, exactly how the U.S. inventor, printer and statesman devised his so-called magic squares 270 years ago, without the help of a computer, and how many permutations are possible under his distinct mathematical design have stumped mathematicians ever since.
Now, a trio of Canadian number crunchers have used modern-day technology to come up with one of the answers.
Using Franklin's rules, there are 1,105,920 variations of his magic square.
That is according to Peter Loly, a professor in the University of Manitoba's department of physics and astronomy, who co-authored a study published online this week by the Proceedings of the Royal Society.
Mar 03, 2006
Dawn Walton
Globe and Mail, Canada
_________________
Long before the Sudoku number puzzle became the crack cocaine of brain teasers, a bored Benjamin Franklin jotted down a couple of much more complex number puzzles of his own.
But, exactly how the U.S. inventor, printer and statesman devised his so-called magic squares 270 years ago, without the help of a computer, and how many permutations are possible under his distinct mathematical design have stumped mathematicians ever since.
Now, a trio of Canadian number crunchers have used modern-day technology to come up with one of the answers.
Using Franklin's rules, there are 1,105,920 variations of his magic square.
That is according to Peter Loly, a professor in the University of Manitoba's department of physics and astronomy, who co-authored a study published online this week by the Proceedings of the Royal Society.
Mar 03, 2006
