In Sudoku, The Human Can Still Beat The Machine

[Music] thank you hello and welcome to Sunday's edition of cracking the cryptic where the eagle-eyed amongst you will um will note that that puzzle on the screen is the one I tried in yesterday's video It's called mean Samurai by j40 it's an absolutely brilliant puzzle but it's not the puzzle I'm supposed to be doing in this video I am supposed to be doing um well Mark Stan is dastardly D basically he sent me a link to a puzzle and he's also sent me a picture today let me show you the picture there extreme grade overall score 380. now the reason this is weird I mean Mark is a strange guy we we all know that but the reason this is weird is that I think that this this typeface comes from a popular Sudoku solving website called something like Andrew Stewart's Sudoku solver and I think that only solves classic Sudoku so I think what Mark is going to have sent me here let's um let's let's put it into the I'll put the link here paste and go arbitrary code execution by jovial well I love jovial's puzzles um and it is it's normal normal Sudoku normal Sudoku we've got ARB right arbitrary I've got a lot of given digits here good grief hang about arbitrary code execution by jovial well that is interesting and let's go back to the picture so this has got an extreme gray I don't the problem is I don't really know what extreme means in terms of difficulty that suggests that this puzzle is well it suggests it's extreme which I guess means it's anything but easy um but I'm very surprised it's extremely difficult when it's got this number of Givens I'm just staring at it now trying to see if I can see anything which I which unsurprisingly I can't and why is it called arbitrary code execution Ace Ace um I don't know but I'm looking forward to trying it and it's not going to take me long to read out the rules today uh I don't have much news either I've got a couple of birthdays so let me do those Brian you've turned 47 today and I know this because your wife Claudine wrote to us and told us that you might appreciate a shout out so Brian I hope you have a brilliant day replete with the copious amounts of chocolate cake that any birthday requires and also Sophie you've turned 24 today now now your boyfriend I I know your boyfriend's name is Kevin but he wanted me to try and say I think it must be his nickname um I'm gonna go for keto or catho I don't know he said I had to pronounce it as germanly as I could and I don't know what that means um and Sophie I understand you don't even watch the videos you just use them to go to sleep which is um well we don't mind really uh it's a it's a problem Mark and I have both been cursed with throughout our adult lives people some people at least find us quite dull but to some nerds we are you know we can be entertaining I promise keep watching the video um anyway the only other thing to mention is over on uh patreon of course we had our fistula Bel Sudoku hunt Sudoku event of the century and very well done uh to the following who completed the whole hunt Thomas Sylvester who finished at six seconds to midnight on New Year's Eve so just in time um Merit watery um and marit asked a question about solution videos I don't know for the fistmathl we did those as a Christmas present so we may we may think about a video for ancient wall in fact I might ask Mr mafel whether he wants to make one um Amit Sharma Marcus Sokol Anna Kristen Monty coolum Sven vilka Liz scoble Alberto valari Jonathan J harsh um who wrote a very amusing comment he said he's convinced that fistamophel is not human and is some sort of Eldritch Singularity of setting Talent which I thought was a beautiful phrase um Patrick Turner Jacob balanga Mark Dumont Gunter Guerra Sebastian Dao and Jonathan Alp all of you very well done fantastic solving and if you if you're still um well if you should all still be working unless you finished it on the jedia hunt which is the current patreon reward for January but we can delay no longer what and why has Mark sent me this apart from the fact it's monstrously hard I wonder if it's just because it's got so many Givens it's weird um but the rules are as follows normal Sudoku rules Supply I.E place the digits one to nine once each in every row column and three by three box and that is it now do have a go at the puzzle the way to play is to click the link under the video as usual and now I get to play Let's get cracking and there's immediately something weird going on in the central three rows here because they've all well they're all missing the same same digits so that is a 789 triple in each I was looking at the boxes to notice that but obviously it's the same if we consider the rows that's not seven that's not eight that's not seven oh it's not well it's not gonna be there's not gonna be anything easy here is there that is something we can be assured about because if the computer thinks it's extreme there must be some weirdnesses going on um I'm gonna check this Row 4 8 and 9 of the missing digits there and just check whether we've got yeah we can get rid of four from this cell so we're down to eight or nine uh and this that's the seven eight oh that's a 789 row as well ah nearly there's very nearly a 789 tripling column five let's oh no oh I see no I was about to say let's try and do some Sudoku with the vertical digits but actually so far so far no it doesn't work I was looking at twos because I had a two down here but I've got three twos in the central columns I've got three ones there I've got three threes there five I get a pencil Mark at the top of the grid so I switched to Corner pencil marks uh just for anybody watching this video who's not seen a crack in the cryptic video before Corner pencil marks like these as opposed to Central pencil marks like these Corner pencil marks are box logic so what I'm doing there is I'm saying that the five in this three by three box is locked into those two cells Central pencil marks are cell logic so I'm saying that that particular cell can only be the digits four eight and nine and I will use that I will use that throughout now sixes don't work five fives okay so we get hmm we get odd five dominoes of pencil marks in boxes one and nine about as remote from each other as they could possibly be five six eight nine in these gaps I might why should I oh no you x-wings maybe eights and I'm gonna have a look at eights in this column because my my I suppose is it my best tip for it might be my best tip for classic Sudoku in terms of the harder types of classic Sudoku is to find um rows and columns where a digit can only go in exactly two positions it's the it's the Cornerstone it's the basis for so many of the Advanced Techniques x-wings skyscrapers um and the like so if I look at eight in this column you can see it's locked into just one of two places so what I'm immediately going to do now is I'm going to hunt for other columns that have a similar restriction yes that that is not going to work at all right okay let's forget about that sorry that didn't work it may be my good tip but it doesn't work uh let's try three four seven and ah I know it right okay so it's the same there it's the same there for sevens as it was for eights here so seven in column four is locked into one of two places oh okay seven in column one is in one of three places so we only have to get if I can get another one that's just using these positions I will have a swordfish uh no not quite no hmm okay sorry that is not it either um right come on Simon there must be there must be something here there must be something we can I suppose I can take some Solace from the fact that this is not going to have been sent to me if it's just downright impossible there must be a trick and we just have to spot what it is and not do such an executable job of spotting whatever it is that Joe feels hidden in her puzzle jovial what have you done um you have been Jolly naughty and put in oh no yeah okay I was trying I was trying to do something with the sevens eights nines here but these don't all go in the same direction foreign was if I make that green obviously Green in box um box four is in one of those two and I immediately looked at that cell expecting to lock that cell into those two but you can see that the missing diagonal goes in a different direction if it gone in the same direction I would have known that was green because I wouldn't have been able to put a green in this row um other than that no oh bobbins Poppins come on Simon oh no oh okay now it is that it well it's something like that now glad it's right where does that digit go I'm sorry I'm so sorry this is totally I think this is really obvious and I just have not spotted this at all right where does that where does that digit go oh it's pretty it is pretty it's pretty but ah it's like one of those film shows where there's a you know there's a really beautiful woman and they put massive glasses on her like mine and they try and make out that she's not really beautiful when she obviously is this this this is is obviously something to do with these sevens eights and nines but look that digit where does it go in in this box if it goes there you can't you just can't put blue anymore in rows row seven of the grid it just doesn't go in if that's blue and that's blue then that's blue and none of those can be blue so blue couldn't go in row seven so that one is the same as that one right I'm going to get rid of my colors all together I think as Ctrl a I think to highlight the whole grid delete all the colors I was scared I was going to delete all my pencil marks um so that digit is blue that can't be blue so that's blue so therefore oh okay so we've done it oh no we haven't all we can do is delete seven from here I thought I was going to be better than that because these are all the blue digits we've now got blue down to eight or nine we've got that one now I'll use that one that's easier to see so that digit has got to go there now and there in these boxes so this one this one and this one they are all the same and therefore well now we need to somehow oh so no right maybe it's the yellows now they're mapping to oh yeah okay it is that's lovely actually that's really very very beautiful so okay if you haven't spotted what's going on here pause the video because it will give you a kick when you see what's happening this is really really beautiful I'm very interested to know whether the computer doesn't understand what we've just done and if this if this helps me to solve the puzzle I will certainly be typing it into the computer in a moment or two and we shall see together but but have you spotted why why why yellows are interesting because let's imagine yellow was eight or nine if yellow's eight or let's imagine it's eight because it's all the same digit you can't put that digit in row three anymore if if these if these digits instead are all nines you can't put nine in row three anymore so the only digit that we can put in yellow is seven so these are all seven which me which means that green is nine there we go there we go there we go We're Off to the Races we've got something in the grid we've got okay now that cut obviously can't be seven anymore let's try and get rid of oh that one this one can't be eight I haven't seen that but that's got to be nine so that's got to be seven because it sees eight and nine that's eight that's not nine anymore because it C is nine and there's now now there's opportunities for other things there's now a seven pencil Mark we didn't have originally let's go well we've got a lot of digits now in these two columns so I'm going to check those out and I've got a 4 7 pair so you can see here that the seven is in one of these two squares where I had the pencil marked for so because I knew the four was in one of those two positions in this box and I've now worked out the seven is in one of those two same two positions in this box I can replace the pencil marks that's become a four seven pair so this must be a 2 8 pair which is resolved eight two go into the grid so 2 is now in a domino down here um okay hang on a moment let's see if we can do any better than that we may not be able to right I'm going to look at these columns now where I need three four and oh where does yeah okay seven has to go at the bottom sorry I could have seen that very quickly so this is Ah that's a three four pair at the top by Sudoku and that means this Square can no longer be a four so that's got to be eight that's got to be nine that's got to be four is this collapsing one two three four five six nine yes nine goes here five six here so now if we scan down this column you can see fives and sixes have got to live in those two squares which means three and something has to live there my brain wasn't quick enough to work out it was three and four um that's annoying that's not actually resolved seven here how can I not see it's because I'm not used to given um um black digits I hardly ever get black digits in my in my puzzles now so my brain has taught itself to focus on Blue digits and leave black digits alone they simply don't exist for my mind but actually that's it's quite useful if you do actually note that they are they are there in the grid to help you three who's in one of those positions um nine look is in one of those positions and can we keep this going well we've got a lot in this column now one four and six so four must live at the bottom it's weird it just it's just absolutely collapsing so two five so there's a five eight pair now you can see in this top box five and eight I've only got these two positions so that must mean that the nine is not going to interrupt the flow of five eight that must exist this has got to be a two yeah [Music] so let's have a look at what we need to complete this column where we need ones and sixes so the two shifts over here this is a 1 6 pair that square there is going to be the nine that we need nine goes in the corner no song for you that's a five this is a one three pair how's this all getting resolved are the five I was wondering about that six one one three three four so that all goes in that's three in the corner that's three in the spotlight losing its religion one goes here so one goes here six six five five eight eight there and two there that's weird what a beautiful puzzle that is that is so clever I'm actually gonna just um can I reset the puzzle restart look at this because it's absolutely it's just all about those cells and the moment you see that there's an implication between these green cells and these three cells it that that's the moment I see that's the moment you color the scent you color the central strip and because of the way that jovial has designed Row three you immediately are able to say something about what the digi what one of the colors is that's just it's gorgeous I mean full stop that that is gorgeous now I'm just gonna pause while I go and type this in um to a computer solver and then we'll look at that together one second right hopefully you can see that I've put this this is Andrew Stewart's solver let me um I'm not very used to this solution okay so that's telling me there's one solution make that go away um grader let's click Creator yes okay so this is what this is what Mark did so this this the computer thinks that this puzzle is extremely hard I'm guessing now there's a button solve path I don't know what that does I do I have click take step before I'm just going to click take step and see what it does let's see if we can understand how the computer thinks about this I don't even understand what that means does that mean it gets rid of the yellow cell it's removed a seven so that yeah I think what this is right so the compute ice ah okay I sort of understand that by reference to the X-Wing chance that I so I did identify during my solve that column four the seven in column four was locked into one of two positions and you can see that the computer solver hones in on that the computer solver notes that if Row 5 column 8 was a 7. then oh is this right or not no I'm not sure actually now yeah okay right now this is more complicated the computer solver says either I think this is what the commuter soul is saying anyway I might be wrong it says either row 9 column four is a 7 in which case row nine column 8 cannot be a seven or Row 4 column four is a 7 because that's the only other position for this 7 in this column in which case in this row this would be a seven and therefore that still can't be a seventh so it's a mat that's a mad thing to do yeah that's what that's what the yellow so yellow means it takes them out grief what's that an X cycle getting rid of an 8 in that cell but it's not it's not another x-cycle getting rid of an 8 in this cell that's going to give it okay so that gives it the oh no I don't know what that's done now it still hasn't given it a digit what is that aligned pair exclusion there was a time in my life where I knew what one of those was that time has passed it looks complicated and it doesn't look like it's doing anything so the computer is going off on Flights of Fancy here another one of those things you know to get rid of candidates in individual cells getting rid of a four in the corner gosh that's getting rid of a seven in row seven column three using an alter alternating inference chain which sounds to me just like guessing now another so the computer sort of understands that there is some there's some coordination going on through these central three rows but it doesn't it cannot understand the simple deduction that a human being can just see the moment that you you sort of study it I'm not I mean it's still it's still it's still messing about it I'm not surprised it thinks the puzzle is difficult if you need all this nonsense to do it sell for it's right down here it's doing cell forcing Chains It's almost we're getting towards Bowman's Bingo oh please go to Bowman's bingo oh oh oh no no it's done something else this is a mad ex oh it's got It's finally got a digit it got an eight there as its first digit that's mad isn't it when you think of what our first digit was three sevens in the middle rows okay so now now what so now it sort of understands does it still doesn't really understand it's still messing about that would look like a y-wing it was a y wing okay and then and then it finishes it well that's that is fascinating that is absolutely fascinating so arbitrary code execution jovial I have no idea what that means but I do know that you have created a beautiful it's a vignette a little moment where human beings can still just about feel Superior so those of you who are um those of you maybe maybe chess people at the moment are particularly bitter about the world of computers um uh you know beating up human beings but in the Sudoku world I think I think we can still say we have the upper hand in the sense that this that jovial has created something that is beautiful to a human being and that a human being can I think with some justification say um that we can say that we understand the puzzle more quickly than the computer does or in a more efficient way than the computer does for once and it's nice occasionally to still think that we can beat the machines um so let me know in the comments how you got on let me know if you saw it the same way I did and I do enjoy the comments especially when they're kind and we'll be back later with another edition of cracking the cryptic [Music] thank you

Channel: Cracking The Cryptic

Views: 60,476

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Id: ihggWfW5wqM

Length: 26min 17sec (1577 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 15 2023