Luo Shu

Feng Shui, still popularly practiced today, was closely related tophilosophy, natural science, geography, environmental science, architecture,metaphysics, and astrology in ancient China. It is basically divided into the FormSchool and the Compass School. The latter deals with numerology, calculation,orientation, and time. Luo Shu [洛書], associated with the eight trigrams [八卦], being anancient Chinese magic square, forms the foundation of the Compass School. The originalLuo Shu, a 3 × 3 magic square, was not unique in ancient China but the extension of itto a total of 18 to 36 standard charts was unique, which are still used by all CompassSchool Feng Shui masters. In this article, modern linear algebra, developed only in themid-19th century, is employed to prove that there is a strong coherence between the 36charts if they are treated as 36 matrices and such correspondences conscientiously agreewith ancient theories of Feng Shui. This article may help to form a scientific base forthe systematic understanding, development, and further research of Luo Shu–relatedapplications