Euler’s Spoiler: A Living Legend!

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Leonhard Euler, one of the most ingenious mathematicians of the 18th century came up with a puzzle in 1782 which an Indian mathematician solved 177 years later in 1959! The puzzle goes like this: 


Imagine that there are 36 officers belonging to six different military regiments, each regiment having six officers of different ranks. How does one arrange them in the form of a square such that each row and column has six officers, and no rank or regiment appears more than once in a row and column? 

Euler concluded that there did not exist a solution for the puzzle. In 1901, another French mathematician, Gaston Tarry, tried and deemed the puzzle impossible to solve. 

Though Mathematics was my subject in MSc I must confess that I haven't heard about the world class Indian mathematician SS Shrikhande who proved Euler’s conjecture wrong and solved the puzzle!


Shrikhande died on 21 April 2020 at the age of 102 yrs. Click on this link to find out who is SS Shrikhande: 


You can also watch this short film on Shrikhande: 




Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

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