Supplementary notes on Lewis Carroll, Graeco-Latin squares and magic squares with an annexe on Maria Theresa thalers and British banknotes

Abstract

Following a brief critique of the wording of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, this article offers some supplementary remarks relating to the solution of a 3 × 3 pseudo-magic square problem posed by Lewis Carroll, a generalisation of the 3 × 3 Lo-Su or luoshu magic square, the problem of installing m2 = 25 or m2 = 36 officers of m different ranks and m different regiments in a m × m Graeco-Latin square (with apposite remarks on the military career of Leonhard Euler's third son and the recent coinage of the Empress Maria Theresa) and a list of fourteen portraits of mathematicians on banknotes paying particular attention to those of Sir Isaac Newton and Florence Nightingale.