Book:Journal/The Ladies' Diary/Historical Note
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Historical Note on The Ladies' Diary
Started life as a women's interest magazine, but evolved into a magazine of riddles, puzzles and mathematical questions.
In its later years, many of the questions published therein were difficult, and attracted the attention of high-profile mathematicians of the time.
Many questions it published were ancient. For example:
- Question $42$ was a variant of Chiu Chang Suann Jing: Example 8.
- Question $51$ was taken from Diophantus of Alexandria: Arithmetica Book $\text {V}$.
It was also frequently the case where the questions were taken directly from published sources, sometimes even mathematics textbooks.
Sources
- 1992: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Puzzles ... (previous) ... (next): The Ladies' Diary or Woman's Almanac, $\text {1704}$ – $\text {1841}$