Solving Magic Squares via Backtracking

by Justin Skycak (@justinskycak) on February 02, 2021

Backtracking can drastically cut down the number of possibilities that must be checked during brute force.

This post is part of the book Introduction to Algorithms and Machine Learning: from Sorting to Strategic Agents. Suggested citation: Skycak, J. (2021). Solving Magic Squares via Backtracking. In Introduction to Algorithms and Machine Learning: from Sorting to Strategic Agents. https://justinmath.com/solving-magic-squares-via-backtracking/

Want to get notified about new posts? Join the mailing list and follow on X/Twitter.

Brute force search can often be slow or infeasible when there are lots of possibilities that must be checked.

However, a technique called backtracking can often be used to drastically cut down the number of possibilities that must be checked. The idea is that whenever we find ourselves constructing a set of possibilities that we know are hopeless, we skip over them and backtrack to the the point right before we started constructing the hopeless possibilities.

Exercise: Brute Force

Use brute-force search to find all arrangements of the digits $1,$ $2,$ $\ldots,$ $9$ into a $3 \times 3$ magic square where all the rows, columns, and diagonals add up to $15$ and no digits are repeated.

You may use $9$ nested for loops if you’d like. It’s ugly but conceptually simple and gets the job done. To illustrate, pseudocode is provided below.


digits = [1, 2, ..., 9]
square = [
    [None, None, None]
    [None, None, None]
    [None, None, None]
]

for num1 in digits:
  clear out the square and put num1 in

  for num2 in digits excluding num1:
    clear out the square and put num1, num2 in

    for num3 in digits excluding num1, num2:
      clear out the square and put num1, num2, num3 in

      ... and so on

      for num9 in digits excluding num1, ..., num8:
        clear out the square and put num1, ..., num9 in

        if is_valid(square):
          print(square)

Note that this solution will be rather slow because it will require checking $9! = 362\,880$ arrangements of digits.

Exercise: Backtracking

Repeat the above exercise, but this time, whenever you reach an arrangement of digits that can no longer become a valid magic square, do not explore that arrangement any further. You can accomplish this by doing the following:

Write a function is_hopeless(square) to check whether an incomplete square could ever become a valid square. A square is hopeless if any row, column, or diagonal is filled in and does not sum to $15.$
Place continue statements in your $9$ nested for loops so that you skip inner loops whenever you detect a hopeless square.

Below are some examples to illustrate how the is_hopeless function should work.


>>> is_hopeless([
        [1,    2,    None],
        [None, 3,    None],
        [5,    6,    4   ]
    ])

OUTPUT: True 

REASONING
- A diagonal is filled in and it doesn't sum to 15.

- No matter how we fill the rest of the square,
  this diagonal still won't sum to 15.

- Therefore, this incomplete arrangement cannot lead
  to any valid square.


>>> is_hopeless([
        [1,    2,    None],
        [None, None, None],
        [5,    6,    4   ]
    ])

OUTPUT: False 

REASONING: There are no filled rows, columns, or
diagonals that don't sum to 15.


>>> is_hopeless([
        [None, None, None]
        [None, None, None]
        [None, None, None]
    ])

OUTPUT: False 

REASONING: There are no filled rows, columns, or
diagonals that don't sum to 15.

Below is an illustration of how to skip inner loops using continue statements.


for num1 in digits:
    clear out the square and put num1 in it

    if is_hopeless(square):
        continue

    for num2 in digits excluding num1:
        clear out the square and put num1, num2 in it

        if is_hopeless(square):
            continue

        ... and so on

To give a concrete demonstration of backtracking, the first several arrangements that get explored are shown below.


[[_,_,_],
 [_,_,_],
 [_,_,_]]

[[1,_,_],
 [_,_,_],
 [_,_,_]]

[[1,2,_],
 [_,_,_],
 [_,_,_]]

[[1,2,3],
 [_,_,_],
 [_,_,_]]
^ hopeless -- do not explore further

[[1,2,4],
 [_,_,_],
 [_,_,_]]

^ hopeless -- do not explore further

[[1,2,5],
 [_,_,_],
 [_,_,_]]

^ hopeless -- do not explore further

...

[[1,2,9],
 [_,_,_],
 [_,_,_]]

^ hopeless -- do not explore further

[[1,3,_],
 [_,_,_],
 [_,_,_]]

...

Want to get notified about new posts? Join the mailing list and follow on X/Twitter.