Thought some of you might be interested in the following article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5950524.ece just published in The Times. Apparently some professor in the US has a scientific paper that is a mathematical approach to systematically solving Sudoku problems.
The times says:
Quote:
an American computer scientist will tomorrow reveal a formula for solving any Sudoku problem, no matter how difficult.
James Crook, an emeritus professor in South Carolina, will be publishing his “pen-and-paper algorithm for solving Sudoku puzzles” on the web-site of the American Mathematical Society. While his paper runs to nine pages of detailed argument, the algorithm boils down to five logical steps.
This weekend, in the face of mounting criticism that he is taking all the fun out of the puzzle phenomenon, the former Winthrop University don declined to discuss what he describes as a “trivial puzzle”
You can read the paper here
http://www.ams.org/notices/200904/rtx090400460p.pdfI've taken a quick look and apart from dressing up some well known simple techniques in mathematical language, the approach seems to be one of trial & error.
Not usually like The Times to publish nonsense - but in this case . . .
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