A few months ago, Ned introduced this blogtropolis to the phenomenon of Su Doku, a game in which nine-cell grid sections are filled with the numbers one through nine without repeating any numbers in rows or columns across the whole grid.
So I was reading this new biography of Franklin* and this illustration catches my eye. In case you can't read the caption, it says
A Magic Square of Squares. Franklin crafted this puzzle some time before 1752. The numbers in each column, horizontal or vertical or within the double diagonals, all add up to the same amount, 2,056, and so do the sixteen numbers in any four-by-four square.
Okay, you can go back to your Su Doku now,
*I got the biography of Franklin in a gift shop in the Honolulu airport, but I didn't buy it or steal it; the shop didn't even sell books. I was buying something else and the lady gestured to the book lying on her counter and said
"You want a book?"
"Oh, did somebody leave it?"
"Yeah, you want it?"
"Well, maybe you should hold onto it a while. I'm sure they'll come back."
"It's been an hour. They're not coming back. They never come back. I can't hold onto all this stuff. It clutters everything up. I gotta--"
"Okay, I'll take the book."
2 comments:
I don't know what I love more, Ben Franklin or free books! (Good 'uns, too!)
That Magic Square is totally cool. I want a poster version of that to hang by my desk. Any question any co-worker asks me will be mysteriously and annoyingly nullified with the phrase, "You must consult the Magic Square. Or ... my Magic 8-Ball."
"And does the square actually work?"
"My sources say no."
Soapy / qndtxg
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