Pub. date: 2009 | Online Pub. Date: May 18, 2009 | DOI: 10.4135/9781412971935 | Print ISBN: 9781412966702 | Online ISBN: 9781412971935| Publisher:SAGE Publications, Inc.About this encyclopedia
Sudoku (or Soduku) has become a social phenomenon in more than 70 countries over the last several years. Known by its Japanese name, the game attracts both children as young as 9 years old and adults from various walks of life. Sudoku is a purely logic-based puzzle, despite its appearance as a mathematical game, with, by definition only one correct answer. The history of Sudoku being played, distinguished from its history as mathematical work by Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler and his Latin Squares, dates back to late-19th-century France. Le Siècle , a daily newspaper based in Paris, began publishing a partially completed 9 × 9 square with 3 × 3 subsquares in 1892. It was different from modern Sudoku in that it had more than just single-digit ...