'When a Newspaper Publishes an Unsolvable Puzzle'

Slashdot reader DevNull127 writes: It's a newspaper puzzle that's like Sudoku, except it's impossible. [Sort of...] They call it 'The Challenger' puzzle — but when the newspaper leaves out a crucial instruction, you can end up searching forever for a unique solution which doesn't exist!

'If you're thinking 'This could be a 9 or an 8....' — you're right!' complains Lou Cabron. 'Everyone's a winner today! Just start scribbling in numbers! And you'd be a fool to try to keep narrowing them down by, say, using your math and logic skills. A fool like me...' (Albeit a fool who once solved a Sudoku puzzle entirely in his head.) But two hours of frustration later — and one night of bad dreams — he's stumbled onto the web page of Dr. Robert J. Lopez, an emeritus math professor in Indiana, who's calculated that in fact Challenger puzzles can have up to 190 solutions... and there's more than one solution for more than 97% of them!

At the end of the day, it becomes an appreciation for the local newspaper, and the puzzles they run next to the funnies. But with a friendly reminder 'that they ought to honor and respect that love — by always providing the complete instructions.'

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