I do the sudoku puzzle in the paper every day (and the ‘monster’ hexidecimal version on weekends). I noticed that they are always rotationally symmetric along a single axis. Come to think of it, so are crossword puzzles. Is there a mathematical/logical reason for this, or is it just a convention?
Cecil explains why crossword puzzles are symetric
BTW, this seems to be an anglo-saxon tradition - in Germany, neither all crossword puzzles nor the sudokus are regularly symetrical.
Duh. I meant “anglo-american” tradition, not anglo-saxon. :smack:
I’m not sure what you mean by a sudoku being symetric. Do you mean that if there’s a 4 in the top right there will also be a 4 in the bottom left? I’ve never seen that.
Do you mean that the grid is the same shape whichever way you turn it? Well, of course. What else could it be? You have to fit the same symbols into each column and row. I’m having trouble picturing a sudoku that has 10 columns and 7 rows. How could that work?
By symmetrical, I mean that the spaces that are blank vs. those that are filled are symmetrical, but not the actual numbers filled in.
Ah, I see what you mean.
No, the sudoku in the paper I have aren’t symmetrical. There’s no mathematical need for them to be. It’s probably just a gimmick in your paper.
Sudoku symmetry is just another convention – it makes the puzzle look nice on the page.
twicks, who observed the first flush of sudokumania before leaving the puzzle biz.
The sudokus in my sudoku book aren’t symmetrical in the way you describe. As for crossword puzzles, I think it is just because it looks nice. We did crossword puzzles with our vocabulary words in them in elementary school and they weren’t symmetrical. I remember thinking how weird that was.