Readers of this column are probably familiar with magic squares. Take, say, the consecutive whole numbers from 1 to 16 and arrange them in a four-by-four array so that every row, every column and the two diagonals all add up to the same total. If you succeed, you've made a magic square of order 4, and the common total is called its magic constant. If you do the same with the numbers 1 to 25 in a five-by-five array, you've created a magic square of order 5, and so on.
展开▼