| Have you ever wonder who invented Sudoku? | | | | 1 2 3 4 5 |
| I would like to share with you a real encounter | | | | 2 3 4 5 1 |
| with a Sudoku fanatic I met from my site. | | | | 3 4 5 1 2 |
| I wrote this article History of Sudoku on my site | | | | 4 5 1 2 3 |
| which traces its origin. The history of Sudoku is | | | | 5 1 2 3 4 |
| said to trace back to 18th century. Very often, | | | | As you can see, this is just to simple of |
| you will come across many sites that linked the | | | | aconstruction for to be attributed to ANYONE -- |
| development of Sudoku to Swiss mathematician | | | | I'msure both you and I independently "invente" it |
| Leonhard Euler. There are some sites even | | | | whilescribbling in our notebooks in grade school. |
| claimed that he invented Sudoku. Though it is not | | | | The Graeco-Latin Square that Euler wrote about |
| proven, it adds colours to the argument as to | | | | has twosymbols in each cell, none of which are |
| who actually invented Sudoku. | | | | duplicated inany row or column. Each symbol pair |
| I received a strange email from a Sudoku fanatic, | | | | appears exactlyonce: |
| apparently a Japanese, who felt so strongly that | | | | 1d 2b 3a 4c |
| the name Leonhard Euler should not even be | | | | 3c 4a 1b 2d |
| mentioned in the history of Sudoku. | | | | 4b 3d 2c 1a |
| To protect his privacy, I won't mention his name. | | | | 2a 1c 4d 3b |
| But I gave him the credit for doing the thorough | | | | As you can see, this has nothing to do with |
| research. | | | | Sudoku,nothing to do with puzzles in general. |
| Here's what he wrote to me: | | | | 3) Neither Latin Squares nor Graeco-Latin Squares |
| ============= | | | | are |
| From: XXXXXXXX | | | | "based on" Magic Squares, certainly not on the Lo |
| To: | | | | Shusquare. Euler wrote about "A new kind of |
| Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2005 1:01 PM | | | | magic square" |
| Subject: History of Sudoku ( | | | | -- refering to a way that Graeco-Roman squares |
| Most of what you wrote here is correct -- | | | | couldbe used to generate magic squares. (Take |
| except thefirst paragraph: | | | | the squareabove and replace the a, b, c and d |
| "Sudoku is said to have 18th - century roots, but | | | | with +0, +4, +8and +12 and you'll get this: |
| theorigins are unclear. It is believed the puzzle | | | | 13 6 3 12 |
| startedfrom an 18th - century game invented by | | | | 11 4 5 14 |
| Swissmathematician Leonhard Euler, which in turn | | | | 8 15 10 1 |
| was basedon an ancient Chinese puzzle, Lo Shu." | | | | 2 9 16 7 |
| The myth of the Euler connection is just laziness | | | | .. see the Euler Archive:. |
| onthe part of the press. | | | | Euler Archive |
| 1) The origins of Sudoku ARE clear. Howard | | | | (he ended with a strong statement...) |
| Garnesinvented Number Place, Nikoli changed it | | | | Euler has NOTHING to do with Sudoku, and |
| and coinedthe name Sudoku. It origins as are | | | | thoughbrilliant, didn't discover Latin Squares. |
| concrete as canbe, no more or less than the | | | | ====================== |
| Rubik's cube. | | | | I followed the forum which he also participated in |
| 2) Euler invented Graeco-Latin Squares (which are | | | | and I saw many heated posts written by him |
| inno way related to or similar to Sudoku) | | | | promoting his defensive theory against Euler. |
| usingpre-exsiting knowledge of Latin Squares -- | | | | A Sudoku fanatic? Sudoku Addict? I don't know? |
| whichpre-date his birth by several centuries. | | | | But I admire his effort in doing the research and |
| A Latin Square is nothing more than an nxn array | | | | holding strong in his belief. |
| inwhich each digit from 1 to n appears once in | | | | If you are keen to know the development of the |
| each rowand column. It is not a puzzle, nor are | | | | Sudoku History, click on the link. |
| Graeco-Roman | | | | Just a day of History lesson on the subject of |
| Squares. | | | | Sudoku! |
| This is a Latin Square: | | | | |