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The layout above was taken from a famous Chinese book over 3000 years old. Can you figure out what the configuration represents? (in other words- What’s special about it?)
(Will unmask answers Friday)
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Very old Chinese book puzzle
November 7th, 2007 |
Filed under: Brain Teasers and Puzzles, Lateral Thinking Puzzles, Picture Puzzles, Printable Puzzle
It’s a magic square. All rows, columns, and diagonals add up to 15.
The configuration represents a 3×3 square of the numbers 1-9, where each row, column, and diagonal sums to 15.
It’s like a magic square. The beads are organized with 1-9 beads on each shape. Evens are red; odds are green. More significantly, if you add the numbers across each row, column or diagonal, they add to 15.
Yin and yang
It’s a magic square! The numbers are instead represented by the objects and the number of balls they contain:
8 3 4
1 5 9
6 7 2
Plus, it adds up to 15 along any row, column or diagonal.
Does it got to do something with odd and even counting….
Green: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 –> odds
Orange: 2, 4, 6, 8 –> evens
hmm couldn’t be that simple… there must be another thing…
It represents numbers 1-9…odds are the green…evens are the orange
I see that all the orange numbers are even
All the green numbers are odd
And the numbers 1-9 are represented….is that really all there is to it??
I’m thinking there’s something more…I’ll see if I can find it…
also…..all ways add to 15….up…down…diagonal etc..
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
I love this site, but the recent puzzles have been very easy. Something difficult would be appreciated.
Thanks
1 to 9… may be for counting ..
not sure
Hello Mudit, your feedback is much appreciated.
Its difficult to keep everyone happy with the puzzles; if all of them are very difficult, we’d lose a large percentage of readers. If we keep them all too easy, we’d lose people too.
One idea may be to set aside one day of the week for the really hard puzzles. This way, those who are looking for a real challenge know to stop by every Wednesday (or whatever day gets designated). Any thoughts?
also- there’s more to the above layout than the #’s 1-9
The even oranges are diagonal, pointing to the center.
The odd greens are parallel and perpendicular, sort of forming the sides of a square.
Aha, the number of spheres in each row, column, and diagonal add up to 15!!
The “numbers” add up to 15 in all directions.
yes, it is a magic square- numbers add up to 15 in all directions
taken from the Yih King
Besides the ultimately perplexing idea of a ” magic square ” if you look at the image side ways you will see the image of stopwatch, probably has nothing to do with it , but coincidence, maybe??