Think Like a Sparky

An engineer who I work with gave me this TYN. Stephen is one of those code warriors that must dream in binary. Being the typical "sparky" type, renowned for his people skills, he makes for a superb firmware engineer. I mean no disrespect to him or others in his profession but I think the men and women that excel in firmware (and low level software) development don't think like the rest of us. They see the world like Neo at the end of The Matrix, little bits of op code scuttling here and there. Even us self-avowed Dilbert's, raised in the world of hardware engineering, don't quite connect with that mind set. At least that is my excuse for not solving this puzzle without help from him. Enjoy!

Create an nxn square containing one instance each of the numbers 1 through n squared, such that each row and column has the same sum. Note: You don't get to repeat numbers, he said only one instance of each number!

Example of a 1x1 square, note each row and column adds to 1.

1

Example of a 3x3 square, note each row and column adds to 15.

8 1 6
3 5 7
4 9 2

Today's TYN requires you to create a 5x5 matrix for one point, that and a 7x7 matrix for 5 points. If you can get up to 15x15 you'll win 50 points. Better yet, figure out the rule to follow and get 100 points.

Bonus: If you can make one with even rows and columns you get 1000 points (I'm told you can only do it with odd numbers).

And what will you do with the points you win? I'll email them to you and you can decide!

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