I tried it first before watching...and made the EXACT same mistake he did at the start. I do wish the rules had been a bit more clear/redundant that the constituent numbers can't repeat but the sums can.
It's incredible how much logic can be packed into such a small grid. It takes overwhelming talent to be able to pack a 4x4 puzzle with this much beauty and this much complexity.
Thank you for the feature and apologies for causing the brain ache at the beginning! To be honest, I also assumed column 1 only had one possible fill for most of the time I was trying to set this, so as soon as I realised there was another possibility... well, I'm just not the kind of person to leave it as the obvious option! Great solve after that. I think the neatest way to prove that r4c3 is not a single digit cell is that it causes r3c2 to be a single 8, then 8 has nowhere to go in box 4. Nevertheless I liked your proof, and assessing the options for a single digit in column 3 was certainly the right place to be looking. I made so many drafts of this with deadly patterns on 0s at the end, so I was delighted to find a setting where 0s were forced, even though they don't affect values and the clues are all to do with values. This was very much a case of perseverance paying off, so my message to other setters is to keep persisting even when it looks like something can't possibly lead to a unique solution! Thanks also to the testers for making a copy of the puzzle with the answer check 😁
Amazing puzzle, thank you! I used it to show my 11-year-old just how complicated simple arithmetic can get! Also, kudos to the testers, because that's impressive that we can have the answer check!
@@martysearsThey did just that. I got the congrats message as soon as I filled in the fourth single digit, but at that point I was still finalising the multi digit cells in the lower half of the puzzle.
I love when Simon giggles gleefully and says, “it’s so stupid!” That’s how you know the setter is writing puzzles from the edge of madness, and it’s good fun all around. The slow Thermo puzzle from a week or two back was similarly delightfully deranged.
49:18 "So the question that we now ask is is it possible for the 10 to be the 4-digit total?" Surely it would be quicker to ask if the 20 can be the 2-digit total ;)
At 38:15, when he worked out the minimum value of r3c3 was 18, I thought he would see that had to be more than two digits, and he knew from r1-2c4 that the options were 4 digits, or either 1 or 2 digits (5 or 05), so r3c3 had to be 4 digits.
There were some “simple” deductions missed like these. R3C1 couldnt be a 4-digit cell, otherwise there was no fill for the 10-sum in R1C1. This being available for quite some time. And around 43 mins-ish, it was simple to see that there had to be a 1-digit cell in the X-sum in C4, otherwise it would contain 5 digita summing to at least 15.
Absolute masterpiece, it would have been criminal for Simon not to see this. I think the other more intuitive but wrong answer in column 1 is something that everybody would also fall for when attempting this. Well done Pedalling Pianist for persisting and finding a way around the deadly pattern on zeroes. Thanks for sharing it and caring about us :D
Dear Simon, today I had a really bad day. My 4 year old son is testing my patience (or trying to get me to loose my sanity, I'm not sure yet) and my 5 month old daughter has a mean virus infection that makes her cough terribly, especially at night. Now I'm lying next to her and trying for some sleep that won't come even though I am so very tired. You just said, that being stuck in a puzzle makes you feel like your brain is broken - i know the feeling 😅 But watching this video calms me. You have such a pleasant voice and you speak so kindly, it's so nice to listen to you solve puzzles, that I couldn't even break into (I've tried). I just wanted to say thank you for that. With a little luck I'll get some rest now. I hope you know, how much appreciated your work is.
I love how this was basically 3 different kinds of doing sudoku logic in the 4x4. Once with the values, then with the number of digits (colors) and finally with the actual digits.
51:00 " Maybe it like this more? It does like it more!" With a little dance of joy 😆 Ha, this puzzle is something else, super hard for me. But I understand everything after you explain 😅 thanks for the solve!
Spectacular! All I can offer is: "Said Batty bat, 'I got a wheeze, I’ll fly and hide up in the trees. If Hissing Sid should slither by, I'll drop a boulder from the sky.' Said Artful owl, 'The idea's sound. How will you lift it off the ground'. Poor Batty bat just scratched his head. 'I hadn't thought of that,' he said.
I have watched enough of these videos to know that Simon is incredibly smart. It does make me giggle sometimes when I see him overlook something simple. I think he gets incredibly laser focused on certain constraints that he can’t help but overlook other ones. It’s funny how after watching someone complete hundreds of puzzles and explain their thought process throughout you really get a feeling for how their brain is wired. As always Simon, an amazing solve.
Wow! What mental gymnastics! Very glad I bookmarked this for later when it dropped nearly five months ago. Finally opened it up and gave it a shot, and absolutely loved the logic. Missed one possibility (the correct one) for column one when I first sketched out the possibilities, so could kind of call that bifurcation by running into dead ends in column 2 and row 2 with the two possibilities I first explored, but finally finished in 17:46. Brilliant design.
This was 3 puzzles in one! You had to solve for the total value of each cell, the number of digits in each cell (which was actually the real 4x4 sudoku), and the individual digits in each cell. Brilliant!
Finished in 32:52. Man, I didn't realize how many assumptions I was making as I kept on running into cases where my assumptions failed over and over. For example, I assumed that the first column had to be double, double, double, or double, half, double, but then neither of these worked. Then I finally listed all the possibilities and went from there. But after calculating the values of each square, I assumed that the top right corner had to be 5 and therefore a single digit cell which lead me to a broken sudoku, then I finally made sure I had the logic right for possibilities of how many digits could be in each square and then finally solved it correctly. What a brilliant puzzle which highlights the assumptions we make in these types of puzzle. Very fun and enlightening!
I loved this puzzle. Such beauty, such difficulty. I did make a mistake during the solve, close to the middle. Ended up backtracking to the mistake and was able to solve it from there. Definitely hard to notate, but fun to solve.
Good solve by Simon! Loved his initial fail and the fail at the end. I was just as convinced as him that there was something wrong with the puzzle until I realized it.
dearest simon, i, like i'm sure many others watching, made the same mistake as you in column 1. no need to apologize, it is the first instinct of the brain, and feels quite natural indeed. brilliant puzzle and an excellent solve as well!
Ridiculous complexity, purest logic needed! Simon is the ONLY way. I really wondered how we were gonna have a fail on a CTC video, but you graciously identified the problem and moved on straight away.. I don't know anyone else that could solve this puzzle.🎉
Oh, Simon! That was a glorious solve! And, no, I was not shouting at you at the beginning; I was right there with you trying to figure out how this could possibly work, and only realized the resolution to the conundrum a few seconds before you did -- and I'm sure that I was only faster because you were still explaining your previous thought. Well done to both you and the setter.
Very interesting puzzle. When you mentioned the minimum value of R3C3 was 18 at 38:20 I think there was a nice continuation wherein that shows that cell needs at least 3 digits, and since the right most column needed the numbers 1-4 and couldn't contain 4 digits, one of those must have 3 digits, meaning that "at least 3 digits" in R3C3 actually turns into exactly 4 digits quite nicely. I'm not sure exactly how much that information opens up the board, but it looks like it might have been quite useful.
Simon, Simon, Simon! Don't apologize for not seeing the x - 2x - 4x - 2x pattern right away! When I looked at this puzzle, I also immediately thought c1 should be x - 2x - 4x - 8x, but because of your video title I then said to myself "yeah, but what if it's not?" and quickly figured out the other possibility. But then I missed that x - 2x - 4x - 2x is cyclic, so to speak, and could start from any cell, not only from r1 or r4. You, on the other hand, noticed that as soon as you realized 8x didn't work. And that's what cracked the puzzle. Absolutely no apologies required: bragging would be more appropriate, not that you normally do that! Very nice puzzle and I quite enjoyed watching you invent notations for it. 😺💚
Somehow found the beginning of this extremely easily but then pulled a Simon and forgot to do sudoku and went into convoluted logic to find the digits before realizing what was in front of my eyes. Brilliant puzzle !
I am so glad you picked this up and persevered!! This was a tough puzzle to solve, and I had to solve it again the next day to convince myself I'd solved it logically - haha - It's great to see someone else talk through their thoughts and I don't envy you. Great puzzle, great solve.
Rules: 04:24 Let's Get Cracking: 06:22 Simon's time: 44m29s Puzzle Solved: 50:51 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! The Secret: 6x (06:34, 06:42, 06:50, 06:52, 06:55, 09:58) Scooby-Doo: 1x (12:42) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Hang On: 12x (09:42, 10:42, 10:52, 11:54, 22:48, 23:53, 27:37, 31:08, 35:01, 36:23, 41:51, 49:07) Brilliant: 9x (01:06, 02:30, 03:43, 17:25, 17:27, 23:23, 23:28, 50:10, 50:10) Ah: 7x (13:53, 15:04, 22:48, 24:22, 31:48, 40:35, 40:35, 47:14) Sorry: 6x (09:42, 11:07, 12:39, 16:44, 22:13, 51:28) By Sudoku: 6x (28:31, 28:42, 31:57, 40:16, 45:00, 48:21) Surely: 4x (06:30, 20:32, 30:07, 31:03) Beautiful: 3x (49:53, 51:43, 51:43) In Fact: 3x (21:52, 45:27, 48:17) Obviously: 3x (08:16, 24:59, 25:23) Cake!: 3x (03:45, 03:57, 04:02) Have a Think: 2x (21:01, 42:20) Nature: 2x (44:51, 44:54) Good Grief: 1x (29:09) Clever: 1x (16:18) Lovely: 1x (50:37) Fascinating: 1x (31:54) Ridiculous: 1x (36:44) Bonkers: 1x (00:59) Shouting: 1x (51:26) Wow: 1x (43:00) Baffling: 1x (02:30) What Does This Mean?: 1x (38:32) Weird: 1x (28:02) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Ten (46 mentions) One (52 mentions) Green (16 mentions) Antithesis Battles: Low (4) - High (0) Even (12) - Odd (7) Lower (2) - Higher (0) Black (8) - White (4) Column (22) - Row (19) FAQ: Q1: You missed something! A1: That could very well be the case! Human speech can be hard to understand for computers like me! Point out the ones that I missed and maybe I'll learn! Q2: Can you do this for another channel? A2: I've been thinking about that and wrote some code to make that possible. Let me know which channel you think would be a good fit!
@@rishabh_101A bot that lists all the catchphrases. You must be new to the channel or at least to the comments section if you've never seen it before. 🙂
I imagine that Simon has a wife and children, and since they are his favorite people among even his favorite people, he is constantly telling them how the digits from 1 to 9 add up to 45.
Oh my.. how I’ve missed your videos Simon. I haven’t been able to watch in ages but I heard a particular R.E.M. song yesterday and knew I had to come back and boy what a video to come back on!!!
I never thought the day would come, but in all of the years of watching Simon solve these puzzles, this was the first time ever (and probably will never happen again) where I found the puzzle easier to solve than Simon. I'm much more used to being so proud of myself for solving a "difficult" one and at the end of Simon's solve, he'll say something like: "Well that was a little tricky, but wasn't really that hard ;) )
Yeah I love trying it and finding say three things easier and faster than Simon, then he finds another 7 things automatically that I just had no clue to look along that axis.
17:20 finish. The way I saw it to break in was to consider the parities of cell values in the first two columns and how they interacted with the dots. Column 1 has either one or two odd values (each black dot has to have at least one even value, so odd values cannot be next to each other). Since we need to add to column to 45, there can therefore only be one odd value cell. So consider r2c1. If it is even, then r2c2 is odd. Since the white dot cells in column 2 have to be opposite parities, and they have to have the same total as the values in r1c1 + r2c1, then r1c1 also has to be odd. So set r2c1 as 2x, which makes r1c1 x (4x can't be odd) and r2c2 a minimum of 2x-1. Since it is odd, r3c2 has to be double the value, or 4x-2. The minimum value for r4c2 is then 4x-3. So you set x + 2x = 4x-2 + 4x-3. This makes 3x = 8x-5, which makes x =1, but then the values of r1c1, r2c2, and r4c2 would all have to be 1. The maximum values for the white dot cells would give x = -1, and the other two options between would give x = +/- 3/5ths. Therefore, r2c1 has to be odd, meaning that column 1 is 2x - x - 2x - 4x. This makes 9x = 45, and x = 5. Hopefully that explanation made sense. Absolutely loved this one, and would love to see more like it in the future. Excellent!
I read the rules set a few days ago and noped right out - hoped you’d do it. Not sure why it but its always easier when someone reads the rules and I managed the break in step after I heard you read the rules as I looked at the grid. The break in ONLY in terms of mathematics - knowing I needed an odd number to make the secret work, working out 3 didn’t cut it so knew it was 5 but got the order wrong. Upon working out 3 and (at the time) 5 didn’t work gave up. So I got a lot further than I originally planned to!
Math heavy puzzles are quite hard for me so I'm really proud of myself for figuring out the logic & eventually getting the solution. Took me just over an hours. 63min to be precise. What a lovely puzzle. So simple yet hard at the same time.
I have a hard time imagining anyone making it through this puzzle without at least one detour down a dead-end road. I managed to sort through the column 1 options at the outset, but then made the fatal error of ruling 3 out of r2c3 which lead to a "real boy" 8 in r3c2 which broke the puzzle. Fortunately once I worked my way back to the wrong turn, I had enough of my bearings to make quick work of the rest. Bravo PedallingPianist!
At 13:08 I realized Simon hadn'y figured out other possible arangements for collumn 1, I figured I did have an idea and might as well try solving it myself, then got stuck a while on row 2 only to realize that 0 is indeed a digit and after 67 minutes and 51 seconds I have apparently solved it. I guess good to have this vide motivate me.
Honestly, I lost track of the logic flow by 35th minute. But it was still interesting to watch Simon compete it, as always. What a puzzle! Kudos @ThePedallingPianist. And great job Simon.
That was brilliant 👍🏻👍🏻 Using a pen and paper, I solved it in about 10 minutes - after a false start with 3 • 6 • 12 • 24 and then another false start with 5 • 10 • 20 • 10, I realised there was only one way to get the first column to work without breaking the other clues, and it was plain sailing ⛵ from there. _Edit:_ OK, it turns out I made a lucky assumption about how the small numbers in row 2 were made up and where the zero could be allocated 😢
Took me about 2 hours because I made an assumption the other way about row 2. On the plus side I proved just about every single way that doesn't work lol.
Beautiful! You hit most of the logic long before I did. (i'm not sure I ever would have). But later in the solve, in the bottom left square, which you had marked purple-green (2-digit or 4-digit) I was saying out loud, "that square must be 4 digits! There are no 2 digits that add up to 20!". You got to the same conclusion another way, obviously. But what fun it is to watch you solve these things.
Simon: 25:10 "now, somehow, we have to populate these cells with the right number of digits - does that feel like it will be easy or not?" Me: *glances at time, sees another 25 minutes left in video* Me: "it won't be easy..."
25:08 Loved the puzzle and for some reason, the entries just dropped into place. I tried 15x = 45, saw the errors, and adjusted to the 9x = 45. The parity in box 3 set the sequence. Dealing with the totals helped tremendously, and I added the 0’s last to satisfy digits restraint. I lost a few seconds to upgrading the single digit pencil marks to real entries.
0-9. What a fantastic setup for 4x4 sodoku. It feels like there's so many more possibilities with that than there are with using 1-4. This is a fantastic format, and I hope a bunch of constructors run off with it to see what it can do!
Loved this puzzle. Time was 17:44, but I was lucky. Like Simon, I made an error, and considered only one of the two options for column 1. Fortunately, I considered the 5 version. Saved me the time of exploring and rejecting the 3 version.
this is a brilliancy, the fact that 1+2+3+4 = 10, and that's the number of digits from 0..9, the fact, that is sort of a tensor product of a 4x4 trivial sudoku (for the 1234 compositions), with underlying structure of summation, are both fabulous, the feeling of joy when in 3 minutes the sudoku is solved after spending some 20 minutes to get the pattern right... very very nice puzzle
Took me ages to do this. I fairly quickly worked out that the first column was 5,10,10,20 but then not realising the possibility of 0 led me down a similar path of thinking “this is just impossible”. I notated it similarly, initially with values in the centre(with 01 meaning 10) with digit possibilities in the corners and colouring to indicate numbers of digits and a white flash to indicate when the cell was incomplete. It was difficult to get my head around with values in columns able to be the same and zeroes messing with all your natural sudoku assumptions but, once I understood it, it was a really lovely puzzle.
This is stupendously brilliant. How in the world did TPP come up with this incredible puzzle. Once you get your head around it, it's not even that diffccult to solve, but just sitting down and making this 😵 love it❤❤❤❤
I really wish we could have seen Simon's reaction if he hadn't read the rules before reading them out to us… the puzzle going from simple-looking to very weird.
Hot tip for notation on double-digits: if you use Letter Tool, it appears (at least in this puzzle) the tenth letter is O and can be used after a 1 or 2 to indicate 10 or 20. Other numbers needed here mostly seemed to read right naturally.
This took me a shade over 23 minutes, which makes it sound like a breeze. It very much wasn't, and I had a splitting headache before I worked out how to fill column 1. Incredible stuff!
This was brilliant to watch. After reading the rules, I opted for the spectator role, but I found myself enjoying the solve immensely. (And also, I agreed wholeheartedly with the false start - it didn't even occur to me that it wouldn't begin with a 3 (in the corner).)
Fun fact on the answer check for this one - it appears to only be check entered digits and not pencil marks (I suspect that's all the programming allows for checking), if you just enter the four single-cell values and leave the rest of the grid empty it will tell you it's right.
That was an amazing puzzle! Props to ThePedallingPianist. I was really surprised that I noticed many of the steps way before Simon (including that different cells can have equal value). This doesn't happen very often. Still, a really entertaining solve as always! :)
I'm proud to say I saw the solution to the column 1 conundrum fairly quickly, but I noticed that in the rest of the puzzle I was inadvertently making too many (bad) assumptions about 0-placement, and eventually gave up on it.
28:27 officially for me, but it took me about two minutes to realize I needed to change my single pencil marks to actual numbers lol. Really fun and actually very approachable puzzle.
38:02 "It can't have a value of ten!" - Only because the 5 was already determined. Otherwise from top to bottom in column IV: 4+1, 6+7+8+9, 2+3+5, 0. This 0 is evil!
After Simon so helpfully broke into the puzzle for me, i decided to try it myself and finished the rest in under 15 minutes. I don't know why it took Simon so much longer; usually he is way faster than I am.
I don't bother trying to solve most of the puzzles myself, they are too hard for me. But when watching Simon's videos, I'm pleased when I'm able to follow and undrestand his solution path (and I almost always am able); I'm very happy when I find some logic before Simon does; and I'm extremely satisfied when I notice that Simon has made a mistake. Just like in this video :) Too bad that usually when I notice his mistake, it turns out to be just my mistake, usually forgetting some part of the rules :D
Said Batty Bat, “I’ve got a wheeze, I’ll fly and hide up in the trees! If Hissing Sid should slither by, I’ll drop a boulder from the sky!” Said Artful Owl, “The idea’s sound. How will you lift it off the ground?” Poor Batty Bat just scratched his head. “Hadn’t thought of that,” he said.
Yet another brilliant solve and an even more brilliant puzzle. Unfortunately, missed the opportunity for singing "That's 3 in the corner (together with three other digits) all loosing their religion."
28:02 for me. the break in was nice, and i pushed a bit with guessing and since there is only 4 cells with 1 digit putting the last one threw me the correct check lol
I made the exact same mistake at the start. When you play with kropki, there are certain unspoken rules they tend to follow, and the Kropki dots in this puzzle did not follow them!
Only 11:18 in, but I'm suspecting already the root error is the assumption that the 3 black dots necessarily means 1:2:4:8 instead of allowing something like 1:2:4:2, since normally you can't repeat digits, but there's no prohibition in the rules about cell values repeating, just the constituent digits.
It's like someone explained the rules of Sudoku and variant Sudoku to the Pedaling Pianist, but he walked over to the window and tossed out the rulebook. "I'll write my own, thank you"
"And although this puzzle is quite ludicrous, it doesn't have positive numbers." - Simon Don't give setters ideas! They're going to come back with a V that's satisfied by a 7 and a -2. Ok, that would actually be a cool mechanic for me to fail at solving.
I thought 4x4, trivial, I won't bother. Then I saw the ruleset and changed my mind. Glad I did, 56 minutes of twisting my brain to breaking point. Fun!
I also failed at the maths for the first step, but ironically, I failed in the direction that gave the correct solution. My first impression was that the only way you could make the first column add up to 45 = 5*3*3 would be if the base value were a 5. I didn't notice that 1+2+4+8 also potentially would give a multiple of 5. This got me to the solution faster, but I did not technically prove that it was unique along the way.
I didn't quite manage to do this, but I did use the cornermarks for the cell values, using base 36 (A=10, B=11, &c.) Thus, for example, I had the values of column 1 determined to be (in order): A,5,A,K. Granted, it was strange marking the 26-cell as "Q" but there you have it.
I noped right out at those rules. I'll watch this one.
Hahahahaha same!
I didn't even get to the rules. Any 4×4 that takes Simon an hour is a nope for me.
Totally!
I’ll always give a 4x4 a try. If it’s a nope, I’ll find out soon enough (usually). This time, I did it in 20 minutes.
I tried it first before watching...and made the EXACT same mistake he did at the start. I do wish the rules had been a bit more clear/redundant that the constituent numbers can't repeat but the sums can.
It's incredible how much logic can be packed into such a small grid. It takes overwhelming talent to be able to pack a 4x4 puzzle with this much beauty and this much complexity.
"That's... Only logical." - Spock.
hear hear
Now we need the most complicated 1x1 Sudoku
"If I had more time, I would have constructed a smaller Sudoku."
Thank you for the feature and apologies for causing the brain ache at the beginning! To be honest, I also assumed column 1 only had one possible fill for most of the time I was trying to set this, so as soon as I realised there was another possibility... well, I'm just not the kind of person to leave it as the obvious option!
Great solve after that. I think the neatest way to prove that r4c3 is not a single digit cell is that it causes r3c2 to be a single 8, then 8 has nowhere to go in box 4. Nevertheless I liked your proof, and assessing the options for a single digit in column 3 was certainly the right place to be looking.
I made so many drafts of this with deadly patterns on 0s at the end, so I was delighted to find a setting where 0s were forced, even though they don't affect values and the clues are all to do with values. This was very much a case of perseverance paying off, so my message to other setters is to keep persisting even when it looks like something can't possibly lead to a unique solution!
Thanks also to the testers for making a copy of the puzzle with the answer check 😁
Amazing puzzle to fit 40 digits in 16 cells! It was a blast to solve! 😁👍🏻
Just a big „Wow!”
Amazing puzzle, thank you! I used it to show my 11-year-old just how complicated simple arithmetic can get! Also, kudos to the testers, because that's impressive that we can have the answer check!
I reckon they got it to just check the 4 single numbers ;)
@@martysearsThey did just that. I got the congrats message as soon as I filled in the fourth single digit, but at that point I was still finalising the multi digit cells in the lower half of the puzzle.
I love when Simon giggles gleefully and says, “it’s so stupid!” That’s how you know the setter is writing puzzles from the edge of madness, and it’s good fun all around. The slow Thermo puzzle from a week or two back was similarly delightfully deranged.
49:18 "So the question that we now ask is is it possible for the 10 to be the 4-digit total?" Surely it would be quicker to ask if the 20 can be the 2-digit total ;)
At 38:15, when he worked out the minimum value of r3c3 was 18, I thought he would see that had to be more than two digits, and he knew from r1-2c4 that the options were 4 digits, or either 1 or 2 digits (5 or 05), so r3c3 had to be 4 digits.
🤦♂️
There were some “simple” deductions missed like these.
R3C1 couldnt be a 4-digit cell, otherwise there was no fill for the 10-sum in R1C1. This being available for quite some time.
And around 43 mins-ish, it was simple to see that there had to be a 1-digit cell in the X-sum in C4, otherwise it would contain 5 digita summing to at least 15.
We all know Simon doesn't like asking the easy questions.
That’s the only part of this puzzle I thought to myself Simon why
Absolute masterpiece, it would have been criminal for Simon not to see this. I think the other more intuitive but wrong answer in column 1 is something that everybody would also fall for when attempting this. Well done Pedalling Pianist for persisting and finding a way around the deadly pattern on zeroes. Thanks for sharing it and caring about us :D
Dear Simon,
today I had a really bad day. My 4 year old son is testing my patience (or trying to get me to loose my sanity, I'm not sure yet) and my 5 month old daughter has a mean virus infection that makes her cough terribly, especially at night.
Now I'm lying next to her and trying for some sleep that won't come even though I am so very tired. You just said, that being stuck in a puzzle makes you feel like your brain is broken - i know the feeling 😅
But watching this video calms me. You have such a pleasant voice and you speak so kindly, it's so nice to listen to you solve puzzles, that I couldn't even break into (I've tried).
I just wanted to say thank you for that. With a little luck I'll get some rest now. I hope you know, how much appreciated your work is.
Imagine travelling back to May 11th 2020, walking up to Simon and saying "Congrats in solving the Miracle Sudoku! Now try this!"
I love how this was basically 3 different kinds of doing sudoku logic in the 4x4. Once with the values, then with the number of digits (colors) and finally with the actual digits.
this video is an instant classic. there was almost a descent into madness as he tried to remember a quote while also contemplating logic failure!
btw what was that quote?
i dont know! @@jakobdiehn6596
51:00 " Maybe it like this more? It does like it more!" With a little dance of joy 😆
Ha, this puzzle is something else, super hard for me. But I understand everything after you explain 😅 thanks for the solve!
Spectacular! All I can offer is:
"Said Batty bat, 'I got a wheeze, I’ll fly and hide up in the trees. If Hissing Sid should slither by, I'll drop a boulder from the sky.' Said Artful owl, 'The idea's sound. How will you lift it off the ground'. Poor Batty bat just scratched his head. 'I hadn't thought of that,' he said.
Thanks, I was wondering…
Searched youtube for videos with 4x4 Subarus. I'm confused
I have watched enough of these videos to know that Simon is incredibly smart. It does make me giggle sometimes when I see him overlook something simple. I think he gets incredibly laser focused on certain constraints that he can’t help but overlook other ones. It’s funny how after watching someone complete hundreds of puzzles and explain their thought process throughout you really get a feeling for how their brain is wired. As always Simon, an amazing solve.
Wow! What mental gymnastics! Very glad I bookmarked this for later when it dropped nearly five months ago. Finally opened it up and gave it a shot, and absolutely loved the logic. Missed one possibility (the correct one) for column one when I first sketched out the possibilities, so could kind of call that bifurcation by running into dead ends in column 2 and row 2 with the two possibilities I first explored, but finally finished in 17:46. Brilliant design.
This was 3 puzzles in one!
You had to solve for the total value of each cell, the number of digits in each cell (which was actually the real 4x4 sudoku), and the individual digits in each cell. Brilliant!
Oh, I was hoping Simon would do this one. This was such a fun concept and execution on it.
Finished in 32:52. Man, I didn't realize how many assumptions I was making as I kept on running into cases where my assumptions failed over and over. For example, I assumed that the first column had to be double, double, double, or double, half, double, but then neither of these worked. Then I finally listed all the possibilities and went from there. But after calculating the values of each square, I assumed that the top right corner had to be 5 and therefore a single digit cell which lead me to a broken sudoku, then I finally made sure I had the logic right for possibilities of how many digits could be in each square and then finally solved it correctly.
What a brilliant puzzle which highlights the assumptions we make in these types of puzzle. Very fun and enlightening!
I loved this puzzle. Such beauty, such difficulty.
I did make a mistake during the solve, close to the middle. Ended up backtracking to the mistake and was able to solve it from there.
Definitely hard to notate, but fun to solve.
Good solve by Simon! Loved his initial fail and the fail at the end. I was just as convinced as him that there was something wrong with the puzzle until I realized it.
dearest simon,
i, like i'm sure many others watching, made the same mistake as you in column 1. no need to apologize, it is the first instinct of the brain, and feels quite natural indeed. brilliant puzzle and an excellent solve as well!
Me too. I am certain the setter added those dots in C2 to allow the solver to quickly catch the mistake.
Well said!
My first thought was no, that is not true simen. And for the first time I was right.😢😢😢
The part where the rules conspicuously don’t say values may not repeat in a column is definitely a Thing.
“Conspicuously don’t say” , 😂, I like this!
My head has exploded several times trying to even comprehend the rules, love it already!
Ridiculous complexity, purest logic needed! Simon is the ONLY way. I really wondered how we were gonna have a fail on a CTC video, but you graciously identified the problem and moved on straight away.. I don't know anyone else that could solve this puzzle.🎉
9:35 About writing numbers like "12" into the grid: you could use letters for that, for example A being 10, B=11, C=12, D=13, E=14, F=15 etc..
Oh, Simon! That was a glorious solve! And, no, I was not shouting at you at the beginning; I was right there with you trying to figure out how this could possibly work, and only realized the resolution to the conundrum a few seconds before you did -- and I'm sure that I was only faster because you were still explaining your previous thought. Well done to both you and the setter.
A puzzle that makes a great case for a way to do a second color of pencil mark
Very interesting puzzle. When you mentioned the minimum value of R3C3 was 18 at 38:20 I think there was a nice continuation wherein that shows that cell needs at least 3 digits, and since the right most column needed the numbers 1-4 and couldn't contain 4 digits, one of those must have 3 digits, meaning that "at least 3 digits" in R3C3 actually turns into exactly 4 digits quite nicely. I'm not sure exactly how much that information opens up the board, but it looks like it might have been quite useful.
Simon, Simon, Simon! Don't apologize for not seeing the x - 2x - 4x - 2x pattern right away! When I looked at this puzzle, I also immediately thought c1 should be x - 2x - 4x - 8x, but because of your video title I then said to myself "yeah, but what if it's not?" and quickly figured out the other possibility. But then I missed that x - 2x - 4x - 2x is cyclic, so to speak, and could start from any cell, not only from r1 or r4. You, on the other hand, noticed that as soon as you realized 8x didn't work. And that's what cracked the puzzle. Absolutely no apologies required: bragging would be more appropriate, not that you normally do that! Very nice puzzle and I quite enjoyed watching you invent notations for it. 😺💚
Somehow found the beginning of this extremely easily but then pulled a Simon and forgot to do sudoku and went into convoluted logic to find the digits before realizing what was in front of my eyes.
Brilliant puzzle !
I am so glad you picked this up and persevered!! This was a tough puzzle to solve, and I had to solve it again the next day to convince myself I'd solved it logically - haha - It's great to see someone else talk through their thoughts and I don't envy you. Great puzzle, great solve.
Rules: 04:24
Let's Get Cracking: 06:22
Simon's time: 44m29s
Puzzle Solved: 50:51
What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?!
The Secret: 6x (06:34, 06:42, 06:50, 06:52, 06:55, 09:58)
Scooby-Doo: 1x (12:42)
And how about this video's Simarkisms?!
Hang On: 12x (09:42, 10:42, 10:52, 11:54, 22:48, 23:53, 27:37, 31:08, 35:01, 36:23, 41:51, 49:07)
Brilliant: 9x (01:06, 02:30, 03:43, 17:25, 17:27, 23:23, 23:28, 50:10, 50:10)
Ah: 7x (13:53, 15:04, 22:48, 24:22, 31:48, 40:35, 40:35, 47:14)
Sorry: 6x (09:42, 11:07, 12:39, 16:44, 22:13, 51:28)
By Sudoku: 6x (28:31, 28:42, 31:57, 40:16, 45:00, 48:21)
Surely: 4x (06:30, 20:32, 30:07, 31:03)
Beautiful: 3x (49:53, 51:43, 51:43)
In Fact: 3x (21:52, 45:27, 48:17)
Obviously: 3x (08:16, 24:59, 25:23)
Cake!: 3x (03:45, 03:57, 04:02)
Have a Think: 2x (21:01, 42:20)
Nature: 2x (44:51, 44:54)
Good Grief: 1x (29:09)
Clever: 1x (16:18)
Lovely: 1x (50:37)
Fascinating: 1x (31:54)
Ridiculous: 1x (36:44)
Bonkers: 1x (00:59)
Shouting: 1x (51:26)
Wow: 1x (43:00)
Baffling: 1x (02:30)
What Does This Mean?: 1x (38:32)
Weird: 1x (28:02)
Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video:
Ten (46 mentions)
One (52 mentions)
Green (16 mentions)
Antithesis Battles:
Low (4) - High (0)
Even (12) - Odd (7)
Lower (2) - Higher (0)
Black (8) - White (4)
Column (22) - Row (19)
FAQ:
Q1: You missed something!
A1: That could very well be the case! Human speech can be hard to understand for computers like me! Point out the ones that I missed and maybe I'll learn!
Q2: Can you do this for another channel?
A2: I've been thinking about that and wrote some code to make that possible. Let me know which channel you think would be a good fit!
What's that 😂
@@rishabh_101A bot that lists all the catchphrases. You must be new to the channel or at least to the comments section if you've never seen it before. 🙂
@@MrPrzemistrz new to the comment section 💀
It was like a magic square wrapped in the most unusual sudoku. Thank you PedallingPianist, and Simon for the showcase,
I imagine that Simon has a wife and children, and since they are his favorite people among even his favorite people, he is constantly telling them how the digits from 1 to 9 add up to 45.
Imagine if one of the single digiters had been a zero.
I wanted that to be the case! Maybe on one of the X's.
Yes, when Simon was assuming that the biggest value on either sides of an X was 9, I was thinking it could be 10+0
Oh my.. how I’ve missed your videos Simon. I haven’t been able to watch in ages but I heard a particular R.E.M. song yesterday and knew I had to come back and boy what a video to come back on!!!
I never thought the day would come, but in all of the years of watching Simon solve these puzzles, this was the first time ever (and probably will never happen again) where I found the puzzle easier to solve than Simon. I'm much more used to being so proud of myself for solving a "difficult" one and at the end of Simon's solve, he'll say something like: "Well that was a little tricky, but wasn't really that hard ;) )
Yeah I love trying it and finding say three things easier and faster than Simon, then he finds another 7 things automatically that I just had no clue to look along that axis.
17:20 finish. The way I saw it to break in was to consider the parities of cell values in the first two columns and how they interacted with the dots. Column 1 has either one or two odd values (each black dot has to have at least one even value, so odd values cannot be next to each other). Since we need to add to column to 45, there can therefore only be one odd value cell. So consider r2c1. If it is even, then r2c2 is odd. Since the white dot cells in column 2 have to be opposite parities, and they have to have the same total as the values in r1c1 + r2c1, then r1c1 also has to be odd. So set r2c1 as 2x, which makes r1c1 x (4x can't be odd) and r2c2 a minimum of 2x-1. Since it is odd, r3c2 has to be double the value, or 4x-2. The minimum value for r4c2 is then 4x-3. So you set x + 2x = 4x-2 + 4x-3. This makes 3x = 8x-5, which makes x =1, but then the values of r1c1, r2c2, and r4c2 would all have to be 1. The maximum values for the white dot cells would give x = -1, and the other two options between would give x = +/- 3/5ths. Therefore, r2c1 has to be odd, meaning that column 1 is 2x - x - 2x - 4x. This makes 9x = 45, and x = 5.
Hopefully that explanation made sense. Absolutely loved this one, and would love to see more like it in the future. Excellent!
I read the rules set a few days ago and noped right out - hoped you’d do it.
Not sure why it but its always easier when someone reads the rules and I managed the break in step after I heard you read the rules as I looked at the grid. The break in ONLY in terms of mathematics - knowing I needed an odd number to make the secret work, working out 3 didn’t cut it so knew it was 5 but got the order wrong. Upon working out 3 and (at the time) 5 didn’t work gave up. So I got a lot further than I originally planned to!
Math heavy puzzles are quite hard for me so I'm really proud of myself for figuring out the logic & eventually getting the solution. Took me just over an hours. 63min to be precise. What a lovely puzzle. So simple yet hard at the same time.
Just a few minutes in and Simon fell for the 3-6-12-24 (like I did early this morning!) Grabbing the popcorn, this will be fun!
I have a hard time imagining anyone making it through this puzzle without at least one detour down a dead-end road. I managed to sort through the column 1 options at the outset, but then made the fatal error of ruling 3 out of r2c3 which lead to a "real boy" 8 in r3c2 which broke the puzzle. Fortunately once I worked my way back to the wrong turn, I had enough of my bearings to make quick work of the rest. Bravo PedallingPianist!
At 13:08 I realized Simon hadn'y figured out other possible arangements for collumn 1, I figured I did have an idea and might as well try solving it myself, then got stuck a while on row 2 only to realize that 0 is indeed a digit and after 67 minutes and 51 seconds I have apparently solved it. I guess good to have this vide motivate me.
I loved this one. And when you struggle, I learn SO MUCH. So thank you for showing struggles.and errors!
Honestly, I lost track of the logic flow by 35th minute. But it was still interesting to watch Simon compete it, as always. What a puzzle! Kudos @ThePedallingPianist. And great job Simon.
Amazing rule set + references to Captain Beaky and Pinocchio! Delightful!
That was brilliant 👍🏻👍🏻
Using a pen and paper, I solved it in about 10 minutes - after a false start with 3 • 6 • 12 • 24 and then another false start with 5 • 10 • 20 • 10, I realised there was only one way to get the first column to work without breaking the other clues, and it was plain sailing ⛵ from there.
_Edit:_ OK, it turns out I made a lucky assumption about how the small numbers in row 2 were made up and where the zero could be allocated 😢
Took me about 2 hours because I made an assumption the other way about row 2. On the plus side I proved just about every single way that doesn't work lol.
Beautiful! You hit most of the logic long before I did. (i'm not sure I ever would have). But later in the solve, in the bottom left square, which you had marked purple-green (2-digit or 4-digit) I was saying out loud, "that square must be 4 digits! There are no 2 digits that add up to 20!". You got to the same conclusion another way, obviously. But what fun it is to watch you solve these things.
Simon: 25:10 "now, somehow, we have to populate these cells with the right number of digits - does that feel like it will be easy or not?"
Me: *glances at time, sees another 25 minutes left in video*
Me: "it won't be easy..."
I usually suck at puzzles, but I had a lot of fun with this one. Took about fifty minutes, like Simon. Good show!
25:08 Loved the puzzle and for some reason, the entries just dropped into place. I tried 15x = 45, saw the errors, and adjusted to the 9x = 45. The parity in box 3 set the sequence. Dealing with the totals helped tremendously, and I added the 0’s last to satisfy digits restraint. I lost a few seconds to upgrading the single digit pencil marks to real entries.
0-9. What a fantastic setup for 4x4 sodoku. It feels like there's so many more possibilities with that than there are with using 1-4. This is a fantastic format, and I hope a bunch of constructors run off with it to see what it can do!
Loved this puzzle. Time was 17:44, but I was lucky. Like Simon, I made an error, and considered only one of the two options for column 1. Fortunately, I considered the 5 version. Saved me the time of exploring and rejecting the 3 version.
this is a brilliancy, the fact that 1+2+3+4 = 10, and that's the number of digits from 0..9, the fact, that is sort of a tensor product of a 4x4 trivial sudoku (for the 1234 compositions), with underlying structure of summation, are both fabulous, the feeling of joy when in 3 minutes the sudoku is solved after spending some 20 minutes to get the pattern right... very very nice puzzle
Took me ages to do this. I fairly quickly worked out that the first column was 5,10,10,20 but then not realising the possibility of 0 led me down a similar path of thinking “this is just impossible”.
I notated it similarly, initially with values in the centre(with 01 meaning 10) with digit possibilities in the corners and colouring to indicate numbers of digits and a white flash to indicate when the cell was incomplete.
It was difficult to get my head around with values in columns able to be the same and zeroes messing with all your natural sudoku assumptions but, once I understood it, it was a really lovely puzzle.
27:46 for me. I kept forgetting that 0 was an option as well, so I ended up backtracking quite a few times. Absolutely crazy puzzle.
This is stupendously brilliant. How in the world did TPP come up with this incredible puzzle. Once you get your head around it, it's not even that diffccult to solve, but just sitting down and making this 😵 love it❤❤❤❤
I really wish we could have seen Simon's reaction if he hadn't read the rules before reading them out to us… the puzzle going from simple-looking to very weird.
@CrackingtheCryptic Have received my copy of vol.2 and totally love it especially the oh bobbins pillow cover......😂😂😂😂Oh Bobbins!!! I am in 💕
I solved it in 24:30, but had to bifurcate the options for column 1 and row 2 to get started. Very cool puzzle!
Hot tip for notation on double-digits: if you use Letter Tool, it appears (at least in this puzzle) the tenth letter is O and can be used after a 1 or 2 to indicate 10 or 20. Other numbers needed here mostly seemed to read right naturally.
Yep and Letter I for 1 ( for 11 )
This took me a shade over 23 minutes, which makes it sound like a breeze. It very much wasn't, and I had a splitting headache before I worked out how to fill column 1. Incredible stuff!
After ages I finally could solve this absulutely brilliant puzzle.
This was brilliant to watch. After reading the rules, I opted for the spectator role, but I found myself enjoying the solve immensely. (And also, I agreed wholeheartedly with the false start - it didn't even occur to me that it wouldn't begin with a 3 (in the corner).)
Fun fact on the answer check for this one - it appears to only be check entered digits and not pencil marks (I suspect that's all the programming allows for checking), if you just enter the four single-cell values and leave the rest of the grid empty it will tell you it's right.
I think by the time you get the single digits in boxes 3 and 4 the puzzle is pretty much solved
I made the same 15x mistake. I am glad you figured it out.
Simon
"As ludicrous as this puzzle is it doesn't have negative numbers"
Sudoku Setters
"Write that down. Write that down!"
Some have already introduced negative numbers to their puzzles. It's not a new idea.
@@RoderickEtheria
I am aware of variant sudokus...
I watch someone solve sudoku puzzles for fun.
I was making a funny.
That was an amazing puzzle! Props to ThePedallingPianist. I was really surprised that I noticed many of the steps way before Simon (including that different cells can have equal value). This doesn't happen very often. Still, a really entertaining solve as always! :)
🎵The Bravest Solvers in the Land, Are Captain Simon and his Band … 🎶 Fun puzzle, not too hard. ~ 21 minutes 😎
I'm proud to say I saw the solution to the column 1 conundrum fairly quickly, but I noticed that in the rest of the puzzle I was inadvertently making too many (bad) assumptions about 0-placement, and eventually gave up on it.
"There's a hidden single three in the corner..."
There was a three in the corner! We were robbed of a song! I'm so sad 😢
Love this puzzle. Well done ThePedallingPianist
What a wild ruleset!
I'm happy to know i wasn't the only one caught in that 3/6/12/24 trap. It was a fun puzzle to solve.
loved this ! thank you for solving and explaining so honestly and beautifully
28:27 officially for me, but it took me about two minutes to realize I needed to change my single pencil marks to actual numbers lol. Really fun and actually very approachable puzzle.
-It's impossible to make Schrödinger sudoku more Schrödingy.
ThePedalingPisnist: hold my beer.
38:02 "It can't have a value of ten!" - Only because the 5 was already determined. Otherwise from top to bottom in column IV: 4+1, 6+7+8+9, 2+3+5, 0. This 0 is evil!
Was able to stumble through this in 90 mins. Making sense of my notation was half the battle. Not very enjoyable but proud I got it figured out.
After Simon so helpfully broke into the puzzle for me, i decided to try it myself and finished the rest in under 15 minutes. I don't know why it took Simon so much longer; usually he is way faster than I am.
I don't bother trying to solve most of the puzzles myself, they are too hard for me. But when watching Simon's videos, I'm pleased when I'm able to follow and undrestand his solution path (and I almost always am able); I'm very happy when I find some logic before Simon does; and I'm extremely satisfied when I notice that Simon has made a mistake. Just like in this video :) Too bad that usually when I notice his mistake, it turns out to be just my mistake, usually forgetting some part of the rules :D
36 minutes for me, I was very fast figuring the 10-5-10-20, then I slowed down quite a bit... I enjoyed it still, very lovely logic.
Said Batty Bat, “I’ve got a wheeze,
I’ll fly and hide up in the trees!
If Hissing Sid should slither by,
I’ll drop a boulder from the sky!”
Said Artful Owl, “The idea’s sound.
How will you lift it off the ground?”
Poor Batty Bat just scratched his head.
“Hadn’t thought of that,” he said.
Thanks!
Yet another brilliant solve and an even more brilliant puzzle. Unfortunately, missed the opportunity for singing "That's 3 in the corner (together with three other digits) all loosing their religion."
Phew... don't know how I feel about that one. Great solve... and way to challenge me Pedaling Pianist.
28:02 for me. the break in was nice, and i pushed a bit with guessing and since there is only 4 cells with 1 digit putting the last one threw me the correct check lol
Solved it. Was actually a lot more fun than I expected :D
Finally solved it. took me 3 seperate attempts (Kept getting distracted)
Such a clever puzzle. Really good
I made the exact same mistake at the start. When you play with kropki, there are certain unspoken rules they tend to follow, and the Kropki dots in this puzzle did not follow them!
Only 11:18 in, but I'm suspecting already the root error is the assumption that the 3 black dots necessarily means 1:2:4:8 instead of allowing something like 1:2:4:2, since normally you can't repeat digits, but there's no prohibition in the rules about cell values repeating, just the constituent digits.
It's like someone explained the rules of Sudoku and variant Sudoku to the Pedaling Pianist, but he walked over to the window and tossed out the rulebook.
"I'll write my own, thank you"
"And although this puzzle is quite ludicrous, it doesn't have positive numbers." - Simon
Don't give setters ideas! They're going to come back with a V that's satisfied by a 7 and a -2. Ok, that would actually be a cool mechanic for me to fail at solving.
i solved a sudoku with negative values today but with zipper lines hahahah
Totally fun video, every moment of it. Thanks, Simon!
@9:32 Why is the 3 in the top let corner and not the bottom left corner?
I thought 4x4, trivial, I won't bother. Then I saw the ruleset and changed my mind. Glad I did, 56 minutes of twisting my brain to breaking point. Fun!
And remember the series of 100 different 4x4 sudokus, not trivial at all!
I actually figured out the x=5 thing immediately. that is the one and only time ever I will be quicker than you Simon!
Simon giggling while explaining the 45 sum rule because its a 2x2
I also failed at the maths for the first step, but ironically, I failed in the direction that gave the correct solution. My first impression was that the only way you could make the first column add up to 45 = 5*3*3 would be if the base value were a 5. I didn't notice that 1+2+4+8 also potentially would give a multiple of 5. This got me to the solution faster, but I did not technically prove that it was unique along the way.
This has to be my new favourite ❤
I didn't quite manage to do this, but I did use the cornermarks for the cell values, using base 36 (A=10, B=11, &c.) Thus, for example, I had the values of column 1 determined to be (in order): A,5,A,K. Granted, it was strange marking the 26-cell as "Q" but there you have it.