(Image by pvera)
(Image by pvera)

There’s a wonderful article over at ars technica about the mathematics of sudoku. Agnes M. Herzberg and M. Ram Murty recently wrote an article in which they explain some of the mathematical underpinnings of the popular puzzles. They explore several fundamental questions such as “does a given sudoku have a unique solution?” The link above provides a great introduction to the formal paper, and also includes a link to the PDF version of the paper. Check it out. One of the great tidbits from the article includes the stat that there are over 5.5 BILLION unique sudoku puzzles. Yikes. That’s keep even the most committed addicts busy for a while!