Magic Squares
Magic Squares are all through Ramanujan’s notebooks.
He loved to make them for his friends when he was boy, and he continued to think about them for years.
In the book Ramanujan asks
What is small? What is big?
Are there smaller magic squares? 1 x 1? 2 x 2?
15 is the magic constant for a 3 x 3 square. Why must this be true if you are using numbers 1 - 9? What if you used bigger numbers, like 10 - 19? Or 90 - 99?
What is the magic constant for bigger squares, 4 x 4, 5 x 5? Is there a rule for how to find this constant? What would the constant be for a really big square like 100 x 100?
Watch the video below to see a method for building magic squares. See if you can build bigger odd magic squares.
Continue to explore:
The Siamese Method for constructing Magic Squares of odd order.
Dr. Mike’s method for constructing even order Magic Squares.
Construct a magic square for a special occasion.
* The image in this page’s banner contains a famous magic square from the painting by Albrecht Dürer “Melancholia.” Click here to read more about his painting and this type of magic square.