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The Omnifarium - Sudoku/37.html

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I am no longer posting new puzzles to this blog. For all of my Sudoku puzzles, old and new, please visit Sudoku in another section of this website. I will still create and offer new puzzles, in batches of a couple of hundred, once a week or so.

Sudoku #37

Category: Sudoku
Sun, 31 Jul 2005, 14:13

What's the minimum number of seed values needed for a Sudoku puzzle with a unique solution? I will go out on a limb and say that no fewer than 24 seed values are needed.

I don't have a mathematical proof for my assertion, but my Sudoku program has now been running for almost one full day now looking for a puzzle with no more than 23 start values. And it still hasn't produced a puzzle. I'll let it run a little longer, but my gut tells me it won't find anything.

Todays puzzle, like most that I post, has 24 starting values.

Hans

    7
     
  3 5
    4
  1  
     
     
    2
  4  
     
2    
7 8  
4    
9   7
    5
  3 6
    1
     
  9  
3    
     
     
  4  
8    
2 8  
     
9    

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