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Explaining the MORPH tool ...Although it may not be obvious at first, the two puzzles shown below are identical in every way except the details... they can be solved by following exactly the same logical steps.
To begin, consider the two columns marked in blue. Each has one 3x3 block with no numbers given. Each has two 3x3 blocks with 5 numbers given. Of those - in one block two rows are missing one number and one row is missing two numbers. In the other block, one row is missing nothing, and the other two rows are missing two numbers.
By close inspection, you can see that the 5s in the left hand puzzle become 6s in the right hand puzzle. So for example, on the left you can eliminate one row and one column of 5s to get the position of the 5 in a 3x3 block. In the corresponding block on the right you can use the same procedure to get a 6.
Or, consider these two corresponding 3x3 blocks:
On the left you can use two rows and two columns of 5s to determine the position of the 5 in the empty block. On the right you can use two rows and two columns of 6s to determine the position of the 6 in the empty block.
... and so on ... What's the point?The same as anything else in puzzledom - to have fun and stretch your mind a bit. With the MORPH tool you can take a Sudoku and jumble it while retaining what is logically exactly the same puzzle. So, if you and a friend want to have a race on the same puzzle but you think he might cheat by looking at your's... this makes that pretty much impossible. Here's another challenge, try printing the same puzzle a few times with different MORPHs, and see how much variation there is in the time it takes you to solve it. Throw in some experiments with the color/number/alphabet options while you're at it. |