On Common And Perfect Magic Squares With Examples Constructed

The Encyclopaedia fills a gap in both the history of science and in cultural stud ies. Reference works on other cultures tend either to omit science completely or pay little attention to it, and those on the history of science almost always start with the Greeks, with perhaps a mention of the Islamic world as a trans lator of Greek scientific works. The purpose of the Encyclopaedia is to bring together knowledge of many disparate fields in one place and to legitimize the study of other cultures' science. Our aim is not to claim the superiority of other cultures, but to engage in a mutual exchange of ideas. The Western aca demic divisions of science, technology, and medicine have been united in the Encyclopaedia because in ancient cultures these disciplines were connected. This work contributes to redressing the balance in the number of reference works devoted to the study of Western science, and encourages awareness of cultural diversity. The Encyclopaedia is the first compilation of this sort, and it is testimony both to the earlier Eurocentric view of academia as well as to the widened vision of today. There is nothing that crosses disciplinary and geographic boundaries, dealing with both scientific and philosophical issues, to the extent that this work does. xi PERSONAL NOTE FROM THE EDITOR Many years ago I taught African history at a secondary school in Central Africa.

A magic square consists of a series of numbers so arranged in a square that the sum of each row and column and of both the corner diagonals shall be the same amount which may be termed the summation. In "Magic Squares and Cubes" W.S. Andrews writes "The study of magic squares probably dates back to prehistoric times. Examples have been found in Chinese literature written about AD 1125 which were evidently copied from still older documents. It is recorded that as early as the ninth century magic squares were used by Arabian astrologers in their calculations of horoscopes, etc. Hence, the probable origin of the term magic, which has survived to the present day." Topics such as magic squares, magic cubes, the Franklin squares, magics and Pythagorean numbers, the theory of reversions, magic circles, spheres, and stars, and magic octahedroids, among other things.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ...the result, but it is not probable that he derived his square according to the scheme employed here. Our 16X16 square is not exactly the same as the square of Franklin, but it belongs to the same class. Our method gives the key to the construction, and it is understood that the system here represented will allow us to construct many more squares by simply pushing the square beyond its limits into the opposite row which by this move has to be transferred. There is the same relation between Franklin's 16X16 square and our square constructed by alternation with quaternate transposition, that exists between the corresponding 8X8 squares. REFLECTIONS ON MAGIC SQUARES. MATHEMATICS, especially in the field where it touches philosophy, has always been my foible, and so Mr. W. S. Andrews's article on "Magic Squares" tempted me to seek a graphic key to the interrelation among their figures which should reveal at a glance the mystery of their construction. THE ORDER OF FIGURES. In odd magic squares, 3X3, 5X5, 7X7, etc., there is no difficulty whatever, as Mr. Andrews's diagrams show at a glance (Fig. 213). The consecutive figures run up slantingly in the form of a staircase, so as to let the next higher figure pass over into the next higher or lower cell of the next row, and those figures that according to this method would fall outside of the square, revert into it as if the magic square were for the time (at the moment of crossing its boundary) connected with its opposite side into the shape of a cylinder. This cannot be clone at once with both its two opposite vertical and its two opposite horizontal sides, but the process is easily represented in the plane by having the magic square extended on all its sides, and on passing its limits...