Sudoku way to madness

I CANNOT understand much of what I have just written ........ And, by the way, please do not, under any circumstances, try to understand the theory behind Sudoku. If you do, you will go mad.

Don’t ever dare to ask a simple question like “How many numbers must be given in a 9 x 9 array before you can expect to uniquely fill in all the other squares?”

You would think somebody could answer that using words of not many syllables. I haven’t found anybody. Nor have I found anything to read that would make me believe I’m not going mad .......

I have tried my usual trick, asking Google, but all I get are countless references to mathematicians and Games gurus, too smart for their own good and clearly enjoying being unreadable.

I went to the ever-faithful Wikipedia, which can sometimes tell the truth. I found https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Sudoku. Hopeless; even the shorter words were a struggle. Unshaken, I was led to something called NP-completeness which is apparently relevant. Wikipedia struck again, https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/NP-completeness.

I had never heard of anything called NP-completeness until I began this search for Sudoku enlightenment. The article was hopeless. It was clearly impossible to read by anybody with an IQ less than 2000 and without the patience of Job.

Despite not satisfying either of these criteria I pressed on. It wasn’t easy! Try these quotes, just to get a feel for the problem;

“In computational complexity theory, a decision problem is NP-complete when it is both in NP and NP-hard. The set of NP-complete problems is often denoted by NP-C or NPC. The abbreviation NP refers to nondeterministic polynomial time“

How about that! Or this: “Although any given solution to an NP-complete problem can be verified quickly (in polynomial time), there is no known efficient way to locate a solution in the first place” .........

Thanks very much Wikipedia. At least you had the decency to head up the article with the words “This article may be confusing or unclear to readers”.

None of this has dampened my enthusiasm for wanting to solve apparently impossible problems. Thankfully, the solutions to some problems can be a tad easier than this one

One of my first challenges each day is to locate the bush under which my Chronicle has been hidden. The second challenge, usually with Weetabix in my mouth or down my shirtfront, is to locate the puzzles page.

I ignore Swamp and Insanity Streak because, despite years of trying, I have never made sense of either of those cartoons. I can usually get a “good” rating for Target and even sometimes solve the nine-letter anagram.

The Quick Crossword is right up my street although “Quick” is a relative description on my dumber mornings. I can usually solve all but about five of the clues before my coffee gets cold. My wife provides the missing solutions with disdainful ease which is not always a loving way to start the day.

We don’t look at the Cryptic crossword because the Times Cryptic is our bed-time sleep-inducer and nothing must interfere with that. Then it’s down to the real challenge; Sudoku looms.

It’s a sad morning when there is no, so-called, “Easy” puzzle. It means I’ll be struggling to finish anything before evening news time.

“EASY” is just right for me. I do it without writing down any alternatives and usually knock it over in about six minutes. I’ve never done it in less than five. This amuses my wife. She can often knock off a solution in around four minutes and that can have consequences for our family harmony.

It’s been a horrible week for Londoners in particular. The evil of the events on London Bridge defies rational description and I despair for those who perpetrated the horrors.

It was clearly impossible to read by anybody with an IQ less than 2000 and without the patience of Job.