Sudoku
From the frontiers of mathematics comes this news item:
Researcher discovers number of possible Sudokus
A mathematician at the Technical University of Dresden has discovered the largest possible number of Sudoku puzzles, the addictive puzzle game that is spreading around the world like a virus. The puzzles consist of nine squares by nine squares, with each row and column representing positive integers. Each puzzle comes with a handful of numbers already placed in squares. The object of the game is to place a digit in each square so that every row and every column has numbers 1 to 9 with no repeats.
Bertram Felgenhauer, working with Frazer Jarvis from the University of Sheffield, found that there are 6,670,903,7523,012,072,936,960 possible different Soduku games.
That news should bode well for the millions of Sudoku addicts who just can’t get enough of the simple game.
Created by American architect Howard Garns for a 1979 publication of the magazine “Dell Pencil Puzzles & Word Games,” Sudoku became popular in Japan in the 1980’s, drawing its name from the Japanese phrase “suji wa dokushin ni kagiru,” meaning “each number shall stand alone.”
In November, 2004, the British daily Times began printing Sudoku puzzle, with newspapers around the world following suit.
Today, Sudoku is just as popular as crossword puzzles in Germany – and nearly every paper features it.
In Germany alone, more than one hundred different books with games and strategies for playing Sudoku have been published.
Source: The Week in Germany, March 3, 2006
PS: I notice a mis-placed comma in the big number, so perhaps this research needs to be done again. Anyone want to try?
Researcher discovers number of possible Sudokus
A mathematician at the Technical University of Dresden has discovered the largest possible number of Sudoku puzzles, the addictive puzzle game that is spreading around the world like a virus. The puzzles consist of nine squares by nine squares, with each row and column representing positive integers. Each puzzle comes with a handful of numbers already placed in squares. The object of the game is to place a digit in each square so that every row and every column has numbers 1 to 9 with no repeats.
Bertram Felgenhauer, working with Frazer Jarvis from the University of Sheffield, found that there are 6,670,903,7523,012,072,936,960 possible different Soduku games.
That news should bode well for the millions of Sudoku addicts who just can’t get enough of the simple game.
Created by American architect Howard Garns for a 1979 publication of the magazine “Dell Pencil Puzzles & Word Games,” Sudoku became popular in Japan in the 1980’s, drawing its name from the Japanese phrase “suji wa dokushin ni kagiru,” meaning “each number shall stand alone.”
In November, 2004, the British daily Times began printing Sudoku puzzle, with newspapers around the world following suit.
Today, Sudoku is just as popular as crossword puzzles in Germany – and nearly every paper features it.
In Germany alone, more than one hundred different books with games and strategies for playing Sudoku have been published.
Source: The Week in Germany, March 3, 2006
PS: I notice a mis-placed comma in the big number, so perhaps this research needs to be done again. Anyone want to try?
posted by Papa, aka Don at 6:13 PM
1 Comments:
Do the Germans call it Soduku?
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