I watch Ramanujan's Magic Square video and I thought it was really cool that at the end the video reveals that the top row is his Birthday.
I wanted to make a magic square using my own birthday, but since this is a blog I won't be publishing my birthday online. I will tell you that to make a magic square using my birthday, all the columns, rows, and diagonals would need to add up to 142. So instead I used Isaac Newton's Birthday to make a magic square. Isaac Newton's Birthday is December 25, 1642.
You can see that Isaac Newton's birthday is the top row of the 4x4 square. What's interesting is that some of the numbers in both magic squares are the same entries. I think the reason for this is the way I solved it.
First I looked at the numbers in Ramanujan's square to see how some of the entries were related. I noticed that the entry in column 1 row 2 was the (entry in column 4 row 1) +1. So I did this in my magic square. I kept noticing patterns like this until I got to...
First I looked at the numbers in Ramanujan's square to see how some of the entries were related. I noticed that the entry in column 1 row 2 was the (entry in column 4 row 1) +1. So I did this in my magic square. I kept noticing patterns like this until I got to...
At this point I could solve for the remaining entries.
All the entries of the rows, columns, and diagonals add up to 95.
I thought this was an interesting exercise that made me wonder about how Ramanujan came up with this. Did he just play around with the numbers in his birthday until he got this result? Or had he been playing with simpler magic squares and decided to try his birthday?
In conclusion, I really enjoy these magic squares. Its solving a puzzle which is math but sometime people forget that solving puzzles or playing games is math too. This is definitely something I saw this semester that I will take into my classroom someday and show to students.
All the entries of the rows, columns, and diagonals add up to 95.
I thought this was an interesting exercise that made me wonder about how Ramanujan came up with this. Did he just play around with the numbers in his birthday until he got this result? Or had he been playing with simpler magic squares and decided to try his birthday?
In conclusion, I really enjoy these magic squares. Its solving a puzzle which is math but sometime people forget that solving puzzles or playing games is math too. This is definitely something I saw this semester that I will take into my classroom someday and show to students.