Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Proof Of The "Magicness" Of The Siam Construction Of A Magic Square, Joshua Arroyo

Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Mathematics Journal

A magic square is an n x n array filled with n² distinct positive integers 1, 2, ..., n² such that the sum of the n integers in each row, column, and each of the main diagonals are the same. A Latin square is an n x n array consisting of n distinct symbols such that each symbol appears exactly once in each row and column of the square. Many articles dealing with the construction of magic squares introduce the Siam method as a "simple'' construction for magic squares. Rarely, however, does the article actually prove that the …