Maki Kaji, popularly known as the godfather of modern form of Sudoku, died from bile duct cancer on August 10, 2021. This Japanese puzzle wizard was born in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo in 1951. The Keio University dropout, Kaji used to work in a publishing company before setting up a puzzle magazine, Nikoli, in August 1980. He popularised an existing number puzzle and named it ‘Sudoku,’ which is abbreviated from Japanese suuji wa dokushin ni Kagiru and means ‘every number must be single’. The puzzle earned name in Europe and the US several decades later when the BBC wrote about it in 2005.
About Sudoku Sudoku number puzzle requires a player to fill the numbers, one to nine, in a box which is made up of 81 squares without repeating any of the number in any of the nine vertical or horizontal lines. The numbers filled in the grid in the beginning of the puzzle determine the course of the game. Today, more than 100 million people try the puzzle regularly as it helps sharpen the mental faculties. A world championship of Sudoku is taking place annually, since 2006.
Though the origins of Sudoku are not clear, some credit the 18th century Swiss mathematician Euler as its creator, while some others are of the view that it came to the Arab world from China through India in the 8th or 9th century. French newspapers also published many early versions of the game in the late 19th century like the one called le carre magique diabolique (the evil magic square). However, US architect Howard Garns is often credited as the creator of the modern version of the puzzle in the 1970s, who called it Number Place, which Kaji spotted in 1984. But the name, Number Place, did not attract him. So, he created a Japanese version, called Sudoku (numbers should be single). Popular in Japan, Sudoku turned into a global success in 2004 after getting published in The Times of London.
Kaji’s effort of putting Sudoku in the world map and making the puzzle game popular among all age groups was not motivated to earn money. He never claimed a trademark for his new innovations and refinements in the game. For him Sudoku was more than life, a treasure rich in pleasure and joy. He lived to tease the human brain to sharpen it.
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