Broken diagonal

In recreational mathematics and the theory of magic squares, a broken diagonal is a set of n cells forming two parallel diagonal lines in the square.

Alternatively, these two lines can be thought of as wrapping around the boundaries of the square to form a single sequence.

[1][2] Examples of broken diagonals from the number square in the image are as follows: 3,12,14,5; 10,1,7,16; 10,13,7,4; 15,8,2,9; 15,12,2,5; and 6,13,11,4.

Broken diagonals are used in a formula to find the determinant of 3 by 3 matrices.

Broken diagonals are used in the calculation of the determinants of all matrices of size 3 × 3 or larger.