M



Magic Square

A magic square of order n is an n x n array containing the integers 1, 2, 3 ... n2. The sum of every row, column, and the two principal diagonals is the same number s, called the magic sum. The magic sum can be deduced; the sum of all entries in the magic square is counted in two ways, first straightforwardly -- 1+2+3+...+n2 = n2(n2+1)/2 then by adding up the rows (or columns) there are n rows (or columns) each of which sums to s, thus the sum of all entries in the magic square is also ns. Equating these quantities, and solving for s yields:

s = n(n2+1)/2

Here is a magic square of order 5:

	15	 8	 1	24	17
	16	14	 7	 5	23
	22	20	13	 6	 4
	 3	21	19	12	10
	 9	 2	25	18	11
The magic sum is 65.


Matroid

Let E = {e1, e2, ...em} be a finite set, and let F be a family of subsets of E: then F is a matroid if it satisfies


Medial axis

The boundaries of the cells of the Voronoi diagram of the edges of a simple polygon.


Minkowski sum

In a vector space, the Minkowski sum of sets A and B is the set { a + b | a in A, b in B }.


Monoid

A Monoid is almost a group , it only fails to be a group because every element in a monoid need not have an inverse. A monoid does have an identity element (contrast this with a semigroup ).


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An On-line Dictionary of Combinatorics