( e.g. 4+3+8=15 )
3 x 3 Magic Square for 15

A Magic Square consists of a square array of numbers, whose row, column and diagonal and skew-diagonal sums add to the same number.
Each square should have a distinct non-zero positive integer. No two squares should have the same integer.

At the Town High School, Kumbakonam, producing, a conflict-free Time Table for the school was the responsibility of the senior Mathematics teacher, Mr. Ganapathi Subbier. This teacher entrusted the task to Ramanujan who could do it with effortless ease, year after year.

Being fond of numbers, Ramanujan naturally thought of filling the tables with numbers instead of teachers’ names, subjects and room numbers. Thus, his earliest recorded work, in Chapter 1 of his Note Books is on Magic Squares.

The first chapter in Ramanujan’s Notebooks is about construction of Magic Squares. The Magic Square construction methodology developed by him is a rediscovery.

Chapter one in the first Notebook of Ramanujan is the only chapter which has a title: Magic Squares.