Description
This model demonstrates the mathematical concept of a ‘magic square’, in which the numbers in any row across, column down, or diagonal of the square all add up to the same number. This cube, devised by the Rev. A.H. Frost (1819-1907), carries this idea into three dimensions, so that rows through the cube also sum to the same total. In addition, this cube has numbers on both sides of the glass sheets, one side using consecutive numbers 1 to 729, the other non-consecutive numbers 1 to 889. Both layouts are “perfect” magic cubes, so that every row, column, and pillar parallel to the cube’s edges sums up to the same figure (3285 for the consecutive side and 4005 for the non-consecutive side), as do the diagonals on every 9 x 9 orthogonal slice as well as the four triagonals that run between the opposite corners of the cube. The Rev. Frost worked on the solution to these mathematical puzzles whilst working as a missionary in India in the late nineteenth century. Glass models of various different magic cubes by Frost were made for display at the London Science Museum’s precursor, the South Kensington Museum. This model, which represents the first known solution to a perfect, pandiagonal, associated cube of order 9, was likely the possession of his brother, Percival Frost, also a mathematician and a fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge.
04/12/2013
Created by: Joshua Nall on 04/12/2013