Morning all,

Some friends of mine are getting married this year, and I thought it would be neat to give them a magic square that featured their wedding date in some way.

Now, I can make one such that all the lines add up to 2306210 ( or whatever their wedding date actually is..) but I wondered if there was a more elegant way of featuring a date within a magic square?

Rob

A standard way of featuring a date is having the date be broken up among the 4 squares, say, along the top, or on the diagonal.

If they get married on June 23, 2010, then you might have the top row (or diagonal, etc.) be as follows (depending on how the date is usually written where you live):



or



You might add some numerological research as to the significance of the magic total to their marriage.

Thanks Scott,

Is there a method for creating a Magic Square when you want a particular line to have particular numbers in it..?

The only foirmula I know is form Harry Loraynes book Classic Collection 2 whereby he described a method for coming up with a square in the Memory Magic Square effect.

I'm a bit stuck for methods to make a square with a line as you described.

Rob

There's one in the hard-to-find Diagonal Magic Sqaure (scroll to the bottom of the page).

A couple of easier-to-find sources would be Harry Lorayne's Mathematical Wizardry, Werner Miller's E-Z Square 1 or E-Z Square 2.

There have been several methods published for building a 4X4 magic square, given the top four numbers. Here are a couple of them:

Birthday Magic Square, Mark S. Farrar, MUM, June 2003, p36

Double Birthday Magic Square, Arthur Benjamin, MUM, August 2006, p68


Murf

Mark S. Farrar has an online Birthday Magic Square generator, where you type in the desired date:

http://www.markfarrar.co.uk/may30.htm

Paul

Great sources, thanks!

Decomposing Into Numbers

Dr. Benjamin has posted the Double Birthday Magic Square on his site, as a free PDF:
http://www.math.hmc.edu/~benjamin/papers/DBMS.pdf

Here's a young kid performing the routine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM5oI--HfW4

I don't like the kids version because it repeats several numbers and also uses negative numbers.

You folks who have been posting awhile may have seen this very interesting lecture:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fedjvyRt5w

In which the subject is Magic Squares and Masonic Symbols

Three different squares for the month, day, and year.

My own approach to this — "The Natal Square" — can be found in Idiopraxis.

Xhexk out DAVID BERGLAS's book, there's a good one !

George Anderson published a method in his book Magic Digest (now out of print) back in 1972. It uses a key which is very versatile. It's slightly different from the one Mark Farrar and David Berglas used. I've done some further work with this method and have adapted the key from Anderson's book to do a birthday or other date as well as advanced methods for concealing the key and for working with larger numbers. Unfortunately, with a 4 x 4 magic square there are very few numbers which don't generate repeat numbers in some cells and if your friends are getting married on January 1st, then there will be a negative one in the square. Mathematically it can't be helped.
Finally, anyone who knows the origin of the key Anderson published (he credits his grade school teacher) I would really like to know. I've seen the same key in another book, but have forgotten the title and author.