Sudoku: something more than a game
Magic concept, numeric concept
Mathematics, or the study of them, have always been associated with astronomy, the calculation of things and even magic. The concept from which the game of sudoku is derived is undoubtedly linked to the first magic squares that were used in ancient civilizations, such as Egyptian, Chinese or Arabic.
There is a legend that tells that a first magic square arose 2,300 years BC, and was discovered by an emperor, possibly belonging to the first Chinese dynasty, the Xia . The beautiful story indicates that this square was engraved in the shell of a turtle, which bathed calmly on the banks of the Yellow River.
Many centuries later, the idea of the magic square was transmitted by the Chinese to the Arabs, probably through India, in the eighth century of our era.
Curious and western origins of sudoku
But already in modernity, a Swiss mathematician, very skilled, worked in the squares of numbers. This is Leonhard Euler , who lived in the eighteenth century, between 1707 and 1783. Of course he did not create the game as we know it today, but he laid the foundations for the calculation of probabilities in Latin squares .
If you want to know what are the Latin squares, we will say that it is a matrix of x elements where each box is occupied by one of the elements: that is, each of the elements will appear only once in each column and in each row.
In 1970, in New York there was an editorial, Math Puzzles and Logic Problems ("Mathematical Puzzles and Logical Problems") that published a section called Number Place (or "place of number"), where would place mathematical enigmas similar to the current sudoku; but they were not taken into account, so the game as such fell into oblivion.
For 1984, a Japanese newspaper called Monthly Nikolist inaugurated a hobby section called Sūji wa dokushin ni kagiru (which literally means "celibate" or single, and which translates as "numbers must be alone"). This lucky name was put by the president of the newspaper, and then shortened to Sūdoku (sū: number; doku: solo).
As of this date, and with two important variations that the Japanese newspaper implemented -such as the number of figures up to a maximum of 30 and that the cells with tracks would be arranged symmetrically-, the sudoku spread throughout Japan . Until a British judge of the Hong Kong court, Wayne Gould , on a holiday in this country in 1997, found a Sudoku magazine and decided to take it to Europe.
The Times published the first hobby in 2004, three days after The Daily Mail copied the game and then the British and world press seized this wonderful numerical "puzzle" until practically offering it in any kiosk of any city.
Our healthiest brain
It is also called "the game of intelligence". It involves filling 81 cells with numbers from 1 to 9 without repeating them in the rows or columns.
To solve them, associative memory is used, which is what allows us to discover patterns of a partial track. Moreover, it not only stimulates the mind but improves memory.
Through this game the mind is exercised, and there are even people to whom daily practice improves their mathematical abilities.
Of course, not only sudoku serves to keep our brain capacity active: reading, writing, learning another language, drawing crosswords ... all these activities are beneficial for our brain.
But, no doubt, when we solve a sudoku problem, our brain nerve pathways are activated in very complex ways.
If you are interested in learning to play it, we leave you some directions:
http://www.sudoku-online.org/ , http://www.sudokumania.com.ar/