Sudoku: The Latest Puzzle Craze

I picked up a new Sudoku book at Target yesterday for my son, who can’t get enough of these number logic puzzles. When I was in the check-out line, the clerk asked me, “So, are you into Sudoku too?” Before I could even answer, he started telling me how he’d just completed a really difficult book. “Man, I’m so addicted to those things,” he said.

Well, I had to tell him my Sudoku book purchase wasn’t for me, but for my son. I’m intrigued by the enormous popularity of Sudoku, which is a shortened form of the Japanese phrase, Suuji Wa Dokushin Ni Kagiru (”the numbers must be single” or “the numbers must occur only once”). I was surprised to discover that the game didn’t originate in Japan.

According to Wikipedia,

The modern Sudoku was designed anonymously by Howard Garns, a 74-year-old retired architect and freelance puzzle constructor, and first published in 1979. Garns added a third dimension to the traditional Roman practice of Latin Squares … The puzzle was first published in New York by the specialist puzzle publisher Dell Magazines in its magazine Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games, under the title Number Place.

Then Japan’s leading puzzle company, Nikoli, introduced the puzzle form to their fans in 1986 and popularized it by changing the title to Sudoku. It was introduced to Britain in 2004 and the U.S. in 2005 and has become a pop culture phenomenon, known as “The Rubik’s Cube of the 21st century.

Doing daily puzzles can be stimulating for your mind and help keep you mentally sharp as you age.