Nasenbaer wrote:
But the horizontals and diagonals in your avatar all add up to 38. It seems like a special form of a magic square. Or did you mean something else?
Yep, you got the right idea, only the wrong shape.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_hexagonWhat if I tell you this pattern is the
only essentially unique (normal) magic hexagon of a size larger than 1? Of the trillions of hexagonal pattern of numbers, only this pattern and the trivial single 1 stand as (normal) magic hexagons. Which makes it a million times more magical than any magic square you can imagine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_GardnerMartin Gardner is like the godfather of modern recreational maths (to the Western world at least). His books/columns/articles are treasure chests to anyone interested in playing with maths. His impact is only matched by the late
Nob Yoshigahara to the modern Japanese world of puzzles. But I don't expect you guys to know much about "the great Nob".
Richard, interesting cross-number puzzle.
Will take some time to work on it though.