The Zen of Magic Squares, Circles, and Stars

the long version

"This is the most comprehensive and exciting book in many decades on magic squares - arrays filled with numbers or letters in particular arrangements. Clifford Pickover offers a colorful history of these and similar structures, their construction, and classification along with a remarkable variety of newly discovered objects ranging from ornate inlaid magic cubes to hypercubes. He explains why Chinese emperors, Babylonian astrologer-priests, prehistoric cave people in France, and ancient Mayans of the Yucatan were convinced that magic squares held the secret of the universe."--BOOK JACKET.