Sweet, sweet Sudoku, oh how I love you. I have found with family and friends, people either love Sudoku or they have tried it and hate it. In seems there are no in-betweeners. It has a long, interesting history of development that spans across continents, starting in the 18th century.
Sudoku: "Su" means number in Japanese."Doku" refers to the single place on the puzzle board that each number can fit into. It also connotes someone who is single. Can be described as "Solitaire with numbers."
- Name is Japanese but origins are actually European and American; a true hybrid creation
- 18th century Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler apparently developed the concept of "Latin Squares" (numbers appeared once in a guide, across and up and down).
- Late 70's, US Dell Magazines published "Number Place" puzzles using Euler's concept with a 9 by 9 square grid. It continued to be developed by an independent puzzle maker, Howard Garnes
- Mid '80's, Maki Kaji, president of Nikoli Inc (Japanese giant puzzle company) urged company to publish a refined version renamed as "Sudoku"- it became a huge hit in Japan
- Two decades later, it was picked up by the London Times, due in efforts by Wayne Gould, a retired Hong Kong judge originally from New Zealand who discovered the puzzle in 1997
- Gould spent many years developing a computer program to generate them
- Fall of 2004, The Times to started publishing Gould's puzzles
- The first game was published on November 12, 2004. Within a few months, other British newspapers began publishing their own.
- Summer 2005, major US newspapers started carrying the puzzle.
Need to "geek out" more?
Read the source:
History of Sudoku.
Interview with
Maki Kaji and what he is working on now.
18th century swiss mathematician
Leonard Euler.
UPDATE: Now you can win a home by completing a Sudoku game!
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