On December 30 William Walkington sent this greeting to a circle of magic-square enthusiasts — it’s a traditional magic square (each row, column, and diagonal sums to 15), but the geometric area of each cell corresponds to its number.

He added, “The areas are approximate, and I don’t know if it is possible to obtain the correct areas with 2 vertically slanted straight lines through the square. Perhaps someone will be able to work this out in 2017?”

It’s only January 19, and the answer is already yes — Walter Trump has produced a “third-order linear area magic square” using the numbers 5-13:

There are many further developments, which have opened new questions and challenges, as these discoveries tend to do — see William’s blog post for more information.

(Thanks, William.)