Imagine getting a DVD in the mail called "Magic Hypercube Omnibus: All About Magic Squares, Cubes, Tesseracts, Etc." The DVD is compiled and edited by Harvey Heinz, a leading figure in the field of recreational mathematics, who tells us in his foreword that this work may constitute his own "monument," since, like passed colleagues before him, he has been served diagnosis of his impending demise. For this reason his copyright claim states that "copying of the entire disk and free distribution is permitted and encouraged." The contents include a "Begin Here" folder with instructions on the disk's use, its licensing terms, permissions, and other folder introductions. There is then a "Cube Test" of 350 cubes, each analyzed for about 15 characteristics of mathematical magicality. There is an "Ebooks" folder with 31 books from the 14th to the 21st centuries...over 5400 pages of text, including most of the historical documents from diverse cultures introducing or treating the "magic" symmetric arrays of numbers and letters. In the subsequent "Math Papers" file are 19 subfolders providing access to almost 300 articles, including over 9700 pages of scholarship on magic squares and related matters. There are 425 Excel Workbooks on magic sq.ares and cubes in the "Spreadsheets" file. And direct click access is given to 17 of the top 18 English-language Magic hypercube sites on the internet in the "Web Sites" file. In short, there is not much known about magic hypercubes that Harvey Heinz has not made accessible here. It's ALL accessible here--history, theory, practice and examples galore. It's truly an awesome work, certainly capable of benefitting all those recreational mathematicians who have given their brilliance and perspiration to this pursuit for much of their lives.
"Major Contributors" (and beneficiaries), whose work is accessible here include, but are by no means limited to: Aale de Winkel (Netherlands), Christian Boyer (France), Walter Trump (Germany), Francis Gaspalou (France), Mitsutoshi Nakamura (Japan), Dwane Campbell (USA), John Hendricks (Canada), Peter Lely (Canada), George Styan (Canada), Alan Grogono (USA), Edward Gutierrez (USA), Craig Knecht (USA), Lee Croft (USA), George Chen (Taiwan), Carlos Rivera (Mexico), Inder Taneja (Brazil), Vladimir Karpenko (Czech Republic), Gil Lamb (Thailand), A.R.Arumugam (New Zealand), Mark Farrar (USA), Robert Dickter (USA), Donald Morris (USA), Paul Pasles (USA), Lee Sallows (Netherlands), Miguel Amela (Argentina), Arie Breedijk (Netherlands), Marian Trenkler (Slovakia), Peter Bartsch (Germany), Mutsumi Suzuki (Japan), Harry White (Canada), Awani Kumar (India), and, of course, Harvey Heinz (Canada). The DVD case includes the compiler's statement that "This DVD is dedicated to the memory of John R. Hendricks," one of the defining scholars of magic hypercubes who left us in 2006. If you want to be astounded at how much of a scientific pursuit can be accessed in one compact place, get this amazing work. Like the rest of "us," you'll say "Thank you, Harvey Heinz."