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Have you heard about Sudoku? Sudoku is a fun logic puzzle that has grown very popular among children and adults in recent months. The puzzle is a 9×9 grid made up of 3×3 regions. The object of the puzzle is to have all numbers 1 through 9 fill each column and each row, and each 3×3 region, but without repeating any of the same numbers in any column, row or 3×3 regions. The game also comes in an easier 2×2 version for beginners.

You can find Sudoku puzzles in the newspaper, puzzle books, and on the Internet. Although this logic puzzle has only recently gained in popularity here in the United States, the puzzle has been around for quite some time now.

The 18th century Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler apparently developed the concept of “Latin Squares” where numbers in a grid appear only once, across and up and down. In 1979 Howard Garnes created a game called “Number Place,” using Euler’s concept. Garnes’ puzzle was published in New York by Dell Magazines. About five years later, in 1984, the puzzle was published in Japan with the new name “Suji wa dokushin ni kagiru,” which translates to “the numbers must be single” or “the numbers can only occur once.” Later the puzzle’s name was abbreviated to simply Sudoku, meaning single number.

In 1997, Wayne Gould began developing a computer program to produce Sudoku number puzzles. It took him more than six years to complete his software program. He then promoted the puzzle to The Times in Britain, which published the puzzle in November of 2004. Today, Gould’s puzzle software publishes Sudoku number puzzles daily.

Want to try figuring out a Sudoku puzzle? Go play Daily Sudoku now.