Who is the founder of sudoku

Sometime in the 80s, Kaji took inspiration from an existing number puzzle in the magazine and developed it into the sudoku we know today. TEN www. The game became a huge hit outside of Japan sometime around the 90s when overseas newspapers began publishing them.

Sudoku is now lauded around the world as a puzzle of wits, in the sense that it keeps your mental processes sharp, and even has a world championship that has been running annually since The participants were asked how frequently they did puzzles like Sudoku, and then completed a series of tests that examined their attention, reasoning and memory. Kaji is survived by his wife, Naomi, and two daughters.

Funeral services have been held among close family and a separate memorial service is being arranged by Nikoli. Contact The Author Name required. Email required. He married Katharina Gsell, the daughter of a Swiss painter whom he met seven years after he arrived in Russia. Of their 13 children, only five survived beyond infancy, but Euler said he was never happier - or inspired - than when fulfilling his paternal role.

He wrote: "I made some of my most important discoveries while holding a baby in my arms with other children playing around my feet. At the core of the activities of this 18th century Renaissance man lay what Euler thought was the foundation of all thinking - maths.

As one colleague put it: "Euler calculated without apparent effort - as men breathe. He also invented the notation used for key numbers such as Pi - the ratio of a circle's circumference to its radius.

A poll of the world's leading scientists conducted three years ago named one of Euler's formulae as the most "beautiful" ever as it combines the five most important numbers. For those who understand such things, the formula shows that when one is added to the transcendental number "e" 2.

According to another legend surrounding the professor, he used maths - or a pastiche of it - to prove the existence of God, in a public debate with the French philosopher Diderot ordered by Catherine the Great. His learned adversary, whose mathematical knowledge was unfortunately slight, was unable to respond and lost the debate.

This desire for precision led Euler to the discovery of his magic squares which, apart from the addition of four lines dividing the grid into nine squares, perfectly mimic the Sudoku square. Little did he know. The Japanese name of the puzzle, Su doku, roughly translating as "solitary number", originates from the Tokyo-based publisher which first spotted an American version of the game in and started producing its own Sudoku magazine.

The brain teaser became a rapid hit and now five monthly Sudoku magazines in Japan have a combined circulation of , Although it has also existed in Britain in specialist puzzle circles since the early s, the game only reached the mainstream last November, when the Daily Mail started publishing a version and competitors began to follow suit.

Versions for mobile phones are expected to be launched next month while the internet is crowded with websites offering tips on how to conquer the puzzle. It is a legacy of which Leonhard Euler would no doubt be proud and maybe bemused, alongside modernday compatriots. Maki traveled to more than 30 countries spreading his enjoyment of puzzles.

Sudoku championships have drawn some million people in countries over the years, according to Tokyo-based Nikoli. Sudoku was also never trademarked except within Japan, driving its overseas craze, Nikoli said. He founded Nikoli in , and came up with Sudoku about the same time. Nikoli has provided original puzzles to more than media companies, 10 of them foreign ones.