If you walk through almost anywhere, you’ll see books upon books about Sudoku. At Barnes & Noble they have an entire section dedicated to it. I had never heard about it until a couple weeks ago, so what is it? Here are some facts:
Sudoku (a Japanese term), sometimes spelled Su Doku, is a logic-based placement puzzle, also known as Number Place in the United States. The aim of the canonical puzzle is to enter a numerical digit from 1 through 9 in each cell of a 9×9 grid made up of 3×3 subgrids (called “regions”), starting with various digits given in some cells (the “givens”). Each row, column, and region must contain only one instance of each numeral. Completing the puzzle requires patience and logical ability. Although first published in 1979, Sudoku initially caught on in Japan in 1986 and attained international popularity in 2005.
-The term Sudoku implies “numbers singly”, or loosely translates to “all the numbers must remain unmarried”, in Japanese; it is a registered trademark of puzzle publisher Nikoli Co. Ltd in Japan. Sudoku is pronounced as the English words “SUE-dough-coo”, with the first syllable accented.
-The attraction of the puzzle is that the completion rules are simple, yet the line of reasoning required to reach the completion may be difficult. Sudoku is recommended by some teachers as an exercise in logical reasoning. The level of difficulty of the puzzles can be selected to suit the audience. The puzzles are often available free from published sources and also may be custom-generated using software.
-The puzzle was designed by Howard Garns, a retired architect and freelance puzzle constructor, and first published in 1979. Although likely inspired by the Latin square invention of Leonhard Euler, Garns added a third dimension (the regional restriction) to the mathematical construct and (unlike Euler) presented the creation as a puzzle, providing a partially-completed grid and requiring the solver to fill in the rest. The puzzle was first published in New York by the specialist puzzle publisher Dell Magazines in its magazine Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games, under the title Number Place (which we can only assume Garns named it).
Great books:
Websites:
www.websudoku.com
www.sudokufun.com
www.sudoku.org.uk
WARNING: IT’S ADDICTING!!
by Miss Sarah
no comments