A Room square, named after Thomas Gerald Room, is an n-by-n array filled with n + 1 different symbols in such a way that:
An example, a Room square of order seven, if the set of symbols is integers from 0 to 7:
0,7 | 1,5 | 4,6 | 2,3 | |||
3,4 | 1,7 | 2,6 | 0,5 | |||
1,6 | 4,5 | 2,7 | 0,3 | |||
0,2 | 5,6 | 3,7 | 1,4 | |||
2,5 | 1,3 | 0,6 | 4,7 | |||
3,6 | 2,4 | 0,1 | 5,7 | |||
0,4 | 3,5 | 1,2 | 6,7 |
It is known that a Room square (or squares) exist if and only if n is odd but not 3 or 5.