G is for Gauss
(Eingestellt am 27. August 2025, 07:31 Uhr von PhysicistFromFunen)
Click on the image to play!
This third piece of my mathematical alphabet series takes inspiration from one of the greatest, if not the greatest, mathematicians of all time.
It is of course Gauss and in particular his famous summation formula for the first n positive integers: n(n+1)/2.
Gaussian summation (or Gauss' trick) not only turns triangular sums into an often trivial multiplication (much appreciated in variant sudoku!) - the cleverness and simplicity of its proof offers everyone a glimpse of what "beauty" means to a mathematician.
I can only hope you find a sliver of the same cleverness and simplicity in this puzzle - happy solving!
Rules
Normal sudoku rules apply.Gaussian cages: Digits in a cage do not repeat and must sum to n(n+1)/2, where n is the digit in the grey cell.
Play on SudokuPad!
Lösungscode: Box 2, in reading order. 9 digits, no spaces.
Kommentare
am 3. September 2025, 22:30 Uhr von dzamie
Ooh, fun! Took me a second to get into the swing of things - turns out that n^2 actually diverges from n(n+1) pretty quickly and so works rather poorly as an approximation.
am 2. September 2025, 05:09 Uhr von VitP
this is not a level 2 puzzle.
why?
because you pretty much need to be a mathematician (*) to even get started, and that excludes the vast majority of people, even in the sudoku world.
only then will you be able to CREATE a PROCEDURE to attack this problem, and it will involve a (tiny) database.
and then you find THAT'S 3 IN THE MIDDLE, and then the remainder is a level 2 puzzle.
(*) someone who DANCES with numbers every day
am 29. August 2025, 12:20 Uhr von Ragna
Fun puzzle! Thank you. :-)
am 27. August 2025, 18:34 Uhr von Piatato
Smooth and fun, thanks!
am 27. August 2025, 14:41 Uhr von Qodec
First thought: I'll solve any homage to Gauss. Especially if it's going to be as nice as this one.
Second thought: Hang on-- the man was brilliant, I understand less than 1% of his maths, let's not give people ideas.
-- PFF: Indeed! I doubt 5 stars would be sufficient for even half of those puzzles!
am 27. August 2025, 13:23 Uhr von Myfyr MJ
Nice puzzle but quite hard (42 minutes) - maybe I missed the real break in.
-- PFF: thank you! I think there's a good chance that you did - I'm only guessing, but the break in is *not* the single digit cage in box 3 :)
MMJ: That was the only gimme!
am 27. August 2025, 10:44 Uhr von JoeyJoeJoe
00:40:23 for me - thanks for sharing the puzzle. I rate it very nice but one star for difficulty.
-- PFF: Thank you, I'm glad to hear you liked it!
