Centrally symmetric and magic rectangles (Q1377676)

Let \(c\), \(n\in\mathbb{Z}\) such that \(c\geq 0\) and \(n>1\). A \(4\times n\) rectangular array of the integers in the set \(\{k\mid c+1 \leq| k|\leq c+2n\}\) is called a centrally symmetric rectangle with threshold \(c\), \(R(c;n)\), if all row and column sums are 0. A \(p\times q\) rectangular array of the integers between 1 and \(pq\) is a magic \((p\times q)\)-rectangle if each row sum is a constant and each column sum is another (if \(p\neq q)\) constant. The authors construct a centrally symmetric rectangle for each \(c\geq 0\) if \(n\) is even. If \(n\) is odd, they show that an \(R(c;n)\) exists precisely when \(c\leq {1\over 2} ((n-1)^2-4)\). Although the magic rectangle problem had already been solved, the authors use centrally symmetric rectangles to show that a magic \((p\times q)\)-rectangle exists for \(p,q>1\) if and only if \(p\equiv q \bmod 2\) and \((p,q) \neq(2,2)\).