Monday 4 July 2016

Secret to Solving the Square Puzzle

During my childhood days, I was very much interested in math tricks though I didn't learn much of them.  One of the puzzle that I got to know is square puzzle where numbers from certain range are arranged in such a way that the sum of every rows and columns would be same.  Also, the sum of numbers in both the diagonals would also be the same.  I learned one method to solve such puzzle(probably from my father) but what bugged me was another solution done by XYZ which was different from what I had learned.  I tried to learn how XYZ did that solution but could not.  I even asked XYZ how s/he would do it, but s/he never taught the trick.  Failed after my few attempts, I didn't try and eventually forgot that thing.

This puzzle came up again when I was browsing Quora.  I was looking a thread of Mathematics trick and happened to see the trick.  With all excitement, I crammed that technique and was delighted.  That very technique is today's recipe.  However, it only applies to odd-numbered-boxes squares.