World's Hardest Sudoku

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday July 3, 2012 @08:46PM from the addition-is-tricky dept.

jones_supa writes "A Finnish PhD in mathematics, Arto Inkala, has allegedly created the world's toughest sudoku puzzle. 'There's no straightforward way to define the difficulty level of a sudoku. I myself doubt if this is the hardest in the world, but definitely harder than my previous ones,' Inkala sets off humbly. The news agencies around Europe are nonetheless excited (Google translation of Finnish original). The particular difficulty in this version lies in the number of deductions you have to make in order to fill in a single number on the grid. 'It is a common misconception that the less initial numbers, the harder the puzzle. The most challenging ones have 21-25', the creator adds."

1 of 179 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Re:It's game on then by TemperedAlchemist · 2012-07-03 23:31 · Score: 1, Flamebait

I'm an aspie, as soon as I heard about this I broke out my whiteboards and went to work.
Took me about two hours (including the thirty minutes deciding how best to actually draw the sudoku board). I suppose the hardest part was finding out where to start -- I rummaged through dozens of combinations and tried to deduce a single number, but that method didn't work (didn't have enough colored markers anyway, >:( ).