Number Square Magazine
Number Square is a simple but fun maths based number puzzle. If you've not come across this puzzle type before, the picture to the right shows what the puzzle is right.
You are presented with six sums that have either all or some of the numbers missing. The aim is to enter the numbers from 1 - 9 exactly once into the nine empty cells to complete sums that total the values shown in the grey cells at the end of the rows and columns. If you enjoy maths puzzles or simply want to practice your addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in a fun format, then the maths based number square puzzle should be both satisfying and educational and help you improve your maths.
You should perform arithmetic from left to right and top to bottom. Thus if you see that blank x blank x blank = 224 then you must enter three numbers in the blanks that have not currently been used between 1 and 9 whose product is 224: in this case 4 x 7 x 8 in some order.
A range of rules and observations can be used to help you solve maths square puzzles. For instance, if both steps in a sum are multiplication and the product is an odd number, then you know that the three numbers in the sum are all odd numbers: meaning that you can rule out 2, 4, 6, 8: with only 9 possible numbers to choose from that is quite a useful piece of information.
There are many other similar pieces of logic that can be used to help you solve number square puzzles. They are a great way to get familiar with numbers and to improve your maths. You will only deal with integers, or whole numbers, no steps have a fractional or non-integer answer.
The number square magazine contains 100 of these puzzles, laid out 4 per page on A4 paper. This means there are 25 puzzle pages followed by 25 solution pages showing you the answers. You'll probably want to print the puzzles then check the solutions on screen when you get stuck or to verify an answer!
There are 36 easy puzzles, followed by 36 moderate puzzles with 28 hard puzzles at the end. For those final puzzles you will have no clues, so you may need a deceptive amount of time to whittle down the options and make headway with those! However all the puzzles have a single solution. If you would like to see a sample page and print it off before deciding whether to purchase, you can download the first page of Number Square Magazine here.
To download the Number Square Puzzle Magazine in PDF format on A4 paper to print off the puzzles you want when you want to play them, all for just £1.97 (UK Pounds) or $3.15 (US Dollars) - click the 'Buy Now' button below: