(CBS News) Sudoku is, at its heart, a numbers game. So it's no surprise that mathematicians have latched on to the puzzles as a way to explore problem-solving algorithms and game theories. For ...

A small debate recently flared up on the merits - or lack thereof - of test-driven development. Following Ron Jeffries' attempts to create a Sudoku solver, the community explores some of the ...

LONDON: For those who struggle to solve a sudoku puzzle, scientists have come to your rescue! Researchers at University of Notre Dame have developed a mathematical algorithm that solves sudoku ...

Did you consider yourself a mathematician the last time you sat down to solve a Sudoku puzzle? It’s certainly a mentally ...

Harder puzzles? A Sudoku puzzle builder must provide clues - numbers already in place - to help someone work out the solution. The more clues there are, the easier it is to solve the puzzle.

However, the Crook algorithm is thought to be the first mathematical proof of how to solve the puzzle. Not even Howard Garns, the U.S. architect who devised sudoku in 1979, could promise that.

We then describe several enumerative algorithms to solve the puzzle and compare their relative efficiencies. Two basic backtracking algorithms are first described for the general Sudoku. We then solve ...