SUDOKU BOOK--In case you're unfamiliar with the word,
sudoku is the latest puzzle craze sweeping the UK. It involves placing numbers into a 9x9 grid so that every row, column and 3x3 block contains all the numbers 1 to 9 once only. For example, consider the first three columns of the grid shown here. The number 1 appears in the first column of the 3x3 block at the top, and in the second column of the 3x3 block at the bottom. We know the number 1 must also appear in the middle 3x3 block, and we also know that no number can appear twice in the same column of the grid. Therefore the number 1 must appear below the 9 and the 5 in the middle 3x3 block. The word "
sudoku" is actually an abbreviation of the phrase
suji wa dokushin ni kagiru — or "Only single numbers allowed" — which was the title of the puzzle when it appeared in a
Japanese puzzle magazine in 1984. ("
Su" means "number" and "
doku" means "single".) It is pronounced like the English words "Sue Dock" with a short "oo" sound tagged on to the end of "Dock" (half as long as the "oo" sound in "Sue"). These puzzles are also referred to as "number place" or "
nam-pure" (rhymes with "
crème brûlée").
You solve the puzzle with reasoning and logic. (The numbers are not random but "pseudorandom")
