Who Invented Sudoku?
The name sudoku is Japanese, but the puzzle itself was first published in the United States. Its story runs through French newspapers, an American puzzle magazine, a Japanese publisher and a London daily.
The short version
Howard Garns, a retired architect from Indiana, created the modern puzzle. Dell Magazines first published it in 1979 as “Number Place.” The Japanese publisher Nikoli named it Sudoku in 1984, and The Times of London made it a worldwide hit in 2004.
Before sudoku: the 1890s
In 1892 the Paris newspaper Le Siècle printed a 9×9 puzzle with 3×3 squares, but it used arithmetic and two-digit numbers. In 1895 its rival La France came much closer: only the numbers 1 to 9, each once per row and column. Puzzles like it ran in French newspapers for about a decade, then disappeared around the First World War.
1979: Number Place
The puzzle as we know it appeared in 1979 in Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games, under the name “Number Place.” It’s credited to Howard Garns, a retired architect from Connersville, Indiana. His name appeared in the issues that ran the puzzle and was missing from the ones that didn’t.
1984: the name Sudoku
Maki Kaji, president of the Japanese puzzle publisher Nikoli, brought the puzzle to Japan in 1984. He called it Sūji wa dokushin ni kagiru, roughly “the digits must be single,” and the name was soon shortened to Sudoku. In 1986 Nikoli added two house rules still followed by many puzzle makers: no more than 32 clues, laid out symmetrically.
2004: the world catches on
Wayne Gould, a New Zealander and retired Hong Kong judge, found a sudoku puzzle in a Tokyo bookshop in 1997. He spent more than six years writing a program that could make new puzzles with exactly one answer. The Times of London started printing his puzzles on November 12, 2004, and within a year sudoku was in newspapers around the world.
Why numbers at all?
Sudoku never uses arithmetic. The numbers are only nine different symbols, which is why the puzzle works just as well with letters, shapes or colors. Is sudoku math? explains more, and color sudoku is what Bubble Sudoku plays.
Sudoku by the numbers
- 6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 different finished 9×9 grids exist.
- 5,472,730,538 of them are truly different once you set aside rotations, reflections and swapped symbols.
- 17 is the fewest clues a sudoku puzzle can have and still have one answer.
Play it in color
The same 9×9 puzzle, with nine colors in place of the numbers.
Also on the App Store and Google Play.