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Escargot
In late November 2006, a Finnish applied mathematician, Arto Inkala, claimed to have created the world's hardest Sudoku.
"I called the puzzle AI Escargot, because it looks like a snail. Solving it is like an intellectual culinary pleasure. AI are my initials," he said.
"Escargot demands those tackling it to consider eight casual relationships simultaneously, while the most complicated variants attempted by the public require people to think of only one or two combinations at any one time", Inkala said.
This puzzle is available in the drop down list of examples in the Sudoku Solver. The solver cannot currently solve it, however, using the logical strategies at it's desposal. The brute force "Solution Count" can find the solution but such a method is less interesting than a logical solve route.
Escargot recieved a good deal of publicity in newspapers around the world.
Load Escargot
"I called the puzzle AI Escargot, because it looks like a snail. Solving it is like an intellectual culinary pleasure. AI are my initials," he said.
"Escargot demands those tackling it to consider eight casual relationships simultaneously, while the most complicated variants attempted by the public require people to think of only one or two combinations at any one time", Inkala said.
This puzzle is available in the drop down list of examples in the Sudoku Solver. The solver cannot currently solve it, however, using the logical strategies at it's desposal. The brute force "Solution Count" can find the solution but such a method is less interesting than a logical solve route.
Escargot recieved a good deal of publicity in newspapers around the world.
Load Escargot
Comments
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... by: Sagan
I never got a reply. I never saw my feedback on the site. I have no idea what the problem is.
So I'm going to also post my latest observation to this page. As of Jan. 14, 2025 the Arlo Inkala Escargot puzzle is still wrong after all this time.
It has been incorrectly showing as this:
100007090030020008009600500005300900010080002600004000300000010041000007007000300
That is an extra given digit (1) in box 7 (H3, IIRC) that should not be given. This means your calculations are also affected.
The correct Escargot is.
100007090030020008009600500005300900010080002600004000300000010040000007007000300
Escargot is degenerate. Go Vegan. :-)
... by: Dr, Chris
... by: S3ven_Six
I was able to spot a hidden 2468 quadruple in column 7, forcing a 17 pair that straight up solved the board. There are several other spots that if u just find 1 single digit, the entire board solves itself.
This is a more difficult puzzle that didn't take me 10 minutes to solve, but 2 hours of multicoloring, and contradiction testing, etc. -- with 2 times of straight up bifurcation.
https://f-puzzles.com/?id=yhtyjrzr
... by: JPF Naperville, IL
... by: Leren
... by: lihsiaotung
but I solved Escargot through considering seven casual relationships simultaneously with my solver. Maybe Escargot was not the most difficult Sudoku puzzle,I think.