13th century magic square

thingiverse

I created this simulation of a 13th century tablet from a photograph I took in Xian, China. It's a 3D print of a 6x6 magic square made with bronze infused steel (I printed it in PLA at home first to see what it would be like, then I sent the model off to Shapeways). Interestingly, the numerals are Hindu-Arabic. This was probably the peak of mathematical technology at the time. They found it buried at the base of a palace - probably as a magical or talisman. I've also shared the original photo. I used Photoshop to increase the contrast, clean up noise, and rectify the image. Then exported that as a JPG, and sent it to a website that transformed it into a vector file (.SVG). Then I imported it into Tinkercad and extruded it and added a bottom plate, chamfered the edges and exported it as a .STL file. The .STL file is what you use to print it. When I printed it in PLA - it was difficult to get a non-warped print - but with some fussing you should be able to manage it. I expect it will print better with ABS and a heated plate. The other photo shows the object printed through Shapeways - in bronze infused steel. I'm pleased with that - but it cost more than $100 to print. Can you figure out which of these old numerals match with our current numerals? Hints: the magic number 111 (rows, columns and diagonals) the 9 is nine the 0 is zero the V is not five...