What I really like about the channel is ... for how impossible these puzzles seem, I think I can always follow the logic as it's being explained. Most of the time, I can't even come close to _finding_ the logic myself (certainly not on something like this), but you do such a good job explaining each step as you go along, that nothing ever seems out of the blue.
@@Jabarri74 If you mean the Expanded Phistomephel's Ring, you could start by looking around the net (or somewhere in this channel) for the explanation of the original Phistomophel's Ring. Can't blame you for being lost, though. Set Theory is a branch of math I'm not comfortable with, myself.
I was casting this on the TV, and my wife was reading. Or was supposed to be reading. We watched the break in and she said "this is not for mortals". Simon.. what are you?
There are theories of course, but so far nobody has been both clever enough to figure it out and stupid enough to not realize why that kind of information shouldn't be public knowledge.
Once upon a video dreary Long I pondered weak and weary Over a hard sudoku that would not crack. A sudden gust blew open the shutters And in the window there then fluttered An ancient raven who perched upon a clothing rack. As I stared at this intruder I asked "Could this bird tutor Me to find a solution track?" Quoth the raven: "Quack!" But when I looked into it's eyes My mind seemed to be hypnotized And images unbidden came to me. Diamonds and rings of Phistomefel Formed before me - seemed to tell The way to add some digits to the grid. In a fever, for an hour Labored I with unknown power Until the puzzle was only half done. The I shouted "Demon bird! Tell me now another word That will let me complete this task!" Quoth the raven: "OK Alexa! Tell him how to finish it!" Quoth Alexa: "I thought you'd never ask!" (Sorry - Edgar Allen Poe I'm not!)
7:07 “Everything here is average!” Not true! Your ability to solve these incredible puzzles and on top of that explain how you do it is certainly above average…
I took one look at the length of the video - then I took another look to confirm it - and then I sat down and watched the solve because I knew I was going to get nowhere. I'm delighted that i could occasionally take some line Simon suggested and work it out while it was being explained, but that's my limit for this puzzle. Still, the puzzles, the solve, and some poetry combine to make this the best video I've seen it the two years I've been watching CtC.
Simon, I am in awe of your willingness to risk appearing a fool, yet persevering -- scanning, coloring, enduring mocking ducks, and resolving average little killer diagonals -- all the way to the solution. [Have you considered tackling world peace? ;-D]
Thank you Simon and Mark... for going through the weeds... so we learning solvers can watch excellent logic and solves and a few minor "Boobins"(Bobbins? EDIT yikes beansed that one up). I know it makes me happy seeing a monster solve all live at once.
I often ask hypothetical "Have you considered..." questions of Simon! As a mathematician, I'd be quite happy if he got interested in some of the problems I'm trying to solve!
"tell me what I could have done better?". As you tap dance down the road of life juggling phistomaphel rings and disjoint sets, I am reminded to try and chew my bubblegum as I walk, What you do in your head I fail to do with excel spreadsheets. Keep putting out the great content, including the culture in the intros and outros. Well done sir.
Every time there's a puzzle by TotallyNormalCat on the channel, I feel like the rules should read "Totally normal sudoku rules apply." Anyway, great video as always!
That cry of utter despair when Simon thought he had a deadly pattern at the end made me feel so bad for him. And then the delight of solving it after noticing the disjoint set, great end to a great puzzle.
1:00:48 I am amazed that just after Simon has spent what feels like 15 minutes doing amazing logic proving that the yellow squares cannot contain 3 sixes due to there being a six in the purple/red squares; fails to use that 6 to disambiguate the symmetry of the 5-6 pairs.
He didn’t notice the 7 in box 9 fixing the 57 in box 3. I really think it’s the colours that mess up scanning. The 7 on the red/purple backing is hard to see.
@@Sarlat6 I can understand that he misses the scanning, there are a lot of pencil marks going on at this point. But he literally spent 10 minutes speaking about how the six (that ended up in box 1) forced there to be no more than 2 sixes in the yellows. And then don't use it to disambiguate box 7. I am no good at this, so the only reason I knew was that he literally told me a few moments earlier :D
re-watching after nearly 30 months. What a great puzzle. TotallyNormalCat, you are greatly missed and I hope you're still thinking about setting puzzles again in future.
@@paulmdt1 “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” ― George Bernard Shaw,
i actually started wondering if the poem would be there in the end, the way you talkes us through the intro. As i in the fact from seeing the video should know you solved it and thus the poem would be there. You are very good at telling stories! And solving unholy difficult puzzles!! Congrats Simon, great one!
Every time Simon solves one of these puzzles considered impossible by mere mortals like myself, he proves he is more than the equal of those geniuses creating them. Simply amazing.
"I want these squares to cease being purple but I also want to cease them from being blue." When logic.exe takes up all the RAM and grammar.exe starts glitching.
There were a few things I managed to catch before Simon, but I also wasn't draining every single brain cell for 45 minutes before they popped up. An absolute legend of a solver.
i feel like Simon would make an excellent teacher. there is zero chance in hell i would've come up with any of the logic he used to solve this puzzle, but him talking thru it was more than enough to understand & follow his train of thought. that's one of the reasons i keep coming back to this channel everyday, to see a master at work not only solve a puzzle i probably never could, but also make me understand how he did so!
At 56 minutes in, I was able to figure out a single thing you had not seen yet and cracked 3 more digits. I am proud of that small accomplishment. You got it 2 minutes later.
This puzzle was insane but brilliant, some of the logic I wasn't able to follow, if there's ever a video that would warrant a commentary explaining the your logic throughout the video, it would be this one. I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say we'd love a video like that.
I have been watching Simon solve these monstrously hard puzzles since about 250K subscribers and I have come to the conclusion that if he had gone into biochemistry he would have found a cure for cancer by now.
Jokes aside, I would like tiny little Simon voiceovers to his favorite poems and such. Crypting the Cracktic second channel for out-there unrelated videos?
The fact that Simon will see the most absolutely horrifically hard thing, and then finds the hard way to do the simplest things too, gives me hope. Absolutely incredible solve.
I always find it fascinating how Simon fail to realise "simple" sudoku rules, once he start dwelling on his fast amount of puzzle knowledge to come up with extraordinary logic, leaving him to be completly focused, and unable to transition between clever solutions, and simple solutions. Kinda reminds me of a race of cleverness, and once the hard part is no longer required, he keeps seeking for the next "clever solution" though the simple onces have now presented them self. Can't imagine the years of puzzle solving experiences, to require all of this knowledge, and logic deduction. Really enjoyable, despite when my mortal logic catches on, just eagerly waiting for you to see it too :) For info, my logic caught on with the 6-7 presented, But it was a joy to witness
Re: the "deadly pattern" at the end: One interesting side effect of the box-positions disjoint sets rule is if the pairs of cells in a simple "aligned-pairs" deadly pattern do not occupy the exact same pairs of positions in their respective boxes, the pattern is not deadly and will be resolved by the disjoint sets.
To be fair, I don't think TNC would have been able to set this without the set theory rings that Phistomefel set in place, which Simon has proven time and again in these puzzles. But, that's true, both are geniuses of terrifying intellect.
I think the difference is that Phistomefel mixes up old familiar logic in intricate, but very understandable way (after you get a hang on it). TNC, on the other hand, is aiming at pushing the boundaries of what human mind can solve without breaking, forcing the solver to think outside the box and create new neural pathways
Touring old videos, I came across this one. First, Totally Normal Cat is an amazing genius. Full stop. Second, You are an amazing genius, Simon. I love that you could entirely explain the set theory, could discover the multiple layers of disjoint sets (not only the ones mentioned in the rules themselves, but others deriving from them, and the tiny little palindromes), could explain everything so clearly, belied by your actual scanning prowess your disclaimer that you were not good at disjoint ... and solve this amazing puzzle. I was in the mood today to watch something miraculous, and here it is. Thank you. But wait, there's more - I think I have read The Raven myself several times, but never gotten out of it what I did in listening to you read it at the end of this video. That alone is worth the price of admission. Simon, take a bow. (I have no idea whether you are notified of comments on these older videos, but I place this here to register my admiration regardless of whether anyone ever sees it.)
This one was so fun to watch and try to solve along with Simon. I am truly in awe with how many variations of set theory these outstanding setters use. Kudos on both the setting and solve!
I love thinking about the aesthetic choices setters make on how to indicate things that could be indicated in multiple different ways, "does this look better with two-cell palindromes or one-cell arrows or what?"
I personally would've made one of the two cell palindromes 3 cells (adding a middle digit does nothing) just to annoy the people that would care about the symmetry and aesthetics
I think every time Simon got stuck, he needed to find something with normal sudoku. I imagine how amazing it would be if Simon teamed up with someone expert at scanning and did a speed solve. People seeing a 20 minute video expecting an easy puzzle would be disappointed.
By the title alone I am excited to see this solve! Edit: Well, already Simon is saying it’s impossible, so I’m even more excited to see him solve it now!
This is my 1st comment ever on this channel. I absolutely can not do these puzzles. But boy oh boy, do i adore these long videos. The puzzle that rekindled my love for Sudoku was the 1 by Mitchell Lee The miracle Sudoku with the 1 and 2 as the given digits. I had never tried any variant until i saw how Simon solved it. So i got the App for chess sudoku. I am loving the puzzles #8, #16, 19, #20 were pretty tough with the logic. But tried them a 2nd later on and was able to solve them fairly easily. My proudest solve has been #31 that was brutal. But i summoned my inner Simon and put myself in his shoes. How would he solve it? And it was like he was guiding me to the finish line. I felt so proud to finish the puzzle ik how he feels with solving the hardest of the hardest solves. Simon my friend. Thank you for taking us on a memorable ride on each of your videos. The agony of squeezing every ounce of logic in the puzzles is what makes you great. But the thrill you must feel when you solve them is amazing. You make me cry happy tears when you solve these puzzles. Theres times you make me cry from laughing. My favorite line is when Simon says Bobbins!!
I think the way to go after 40:00 is to realise (as Simon did) that 1, 2, 3, 4 cannot go in the palindromes and then ask where 4 can go in the blue-green squares. The one with the 4 can yield a killer sum of minimum 4+5+6=15 and there is exactly one diagonal with the sum at least 15.
Tried it for a couple hours yesterday. Couldn't get the second digit in. Figured out a lot, but couldn't get any further. Today, I took another stab at it and finished it in 85:24. Getting that second digit is brutal. Heck, getting the first digit is quite insane. The disjoint set eliminating the 12's from the palindromes is what I simply couldn't see yesterday. Today, it was like the seas parted and the way forward just opened up before me. It was such an epiphany. Gotta watch the video now. I really have to see how Simon did this one. edit: I'm watching at @49:00 and Simon is just floundering around. You got past the point where I got stuck. The break-in is determining that 1234 cannot go onto the palindromes. You've reached that point. The puzzle is solvable now. You know each pair of palindromes in each box has at least 56 on it. What does that add up to? 11. But only one small little killer is 15. That's the only one that allows a 4. That's the second digit that I was so happy to get that I mentioned above in my original comment. Weird that Simon got the 1234 removal from the palindromes fairly easy. That's where I got stuck. But the easy stuff, he loses sight of. This is not a criticism. Just an observation. I think Simon just got blindsided by too much math. Now, let's see how much longer it takes him to see it :) Really enjoying this video BTW. After struggling with it for so long, it's somewhat nice to see I wasn't alone in struggling with it. (edit2: YAY! He got it at @51:42, but Simon's scanning is completely shot. 20 minutes to use the 6 and 7. That's very unusual for Simon I have to say.) Interestingly, I got the 1234's in row 5 and column 5 FIRST. You can do some fancy colouring and math to get there. Simon's way was much more elegant. You do need the expanded phisto ring later though.
28:38 There's a quadruple of 6/7/8/9s in c5 and r5 and a 5 in the center, so the double cells at the ends of c5 and r5 have to be 1/2/3/4s. I'll be happily repeating this puzzle until I can see those structures for myself! Thank you very much, Simon and TotallyNormalCat!
Never been so panicked by a video length as today, when around 1:10:00 it was (apparently) clear that it was about to solve and there was still more than 10 minutes left in the video. I got so worried for Simon that something unseen had gone horribly wrong and would have to get ripped apart. But no, it is just several relaxing minutes of The Raven to calm me back down after a satisfactory conclusion.
Only five have solved it, mostly all of them known to be master solvers, and they state, "perhaps the most difficult sudoku I've ever done" ... so, Simon, you can't say you haven't been warned! It's amazing that you manage to do this on a live solve. What probably many of us would want to know: how many puzzles did you try and didn't manage to solve, so no video came out of it. One for every 10 videos, one for every 50, ... ?
Simon, what an absolutely exceptional puzzle and an incredible live solve! Thank you so much to both you and Mark for sharing these puzzles and putting yourselves out there in solving them live.
The subset of what Simon knows and all the clever stuff out there is fairly large. On the other end of the scale is me thinking, ‘That’s a pretty snowflake!’
You know, it's not just the fact that Simon solves these monstrously difficult puzzles, it's that he does it as a live solve, whilst remaining entertaining. I'm lost for words.
I've been solving the difficult puzzles I've not yet tackled from Book 2, and this is the one that held me up longest. I found a "light" version of the break-in that gave me some of what I needed including some low digits and R5C5 and it was clear that I needed some of the other things to be disjoint sets. That took me a while to figure. Then I watched the video - I'd seen it first time round and completely forgotten it. Just astonishing how Simon sees some of those things so quickly. Amazing puzzle (truly one of the best) and amazing solve too.
For "light" break in try positions 13579 in each box (5 sets by disjoint). Transpose digits to boxes 2468 by palindrome. Make boxes 2468 a second colour (four sets). Delete common digits. Delete diagonals - and the whole of the original colour is gone - and do arithmetic on the cells that are left (including the central cell). But that is well short of what the puzzle needs. I got the 34 pairs at the ends of column 5 and row 5 before I worked out how to prove certain sets of cells had to contain distinct digits (it was at least clear that this was likely the way to go).
Simon does incredible logic deductions, but then it's somewhat funny to see him miss the simple sudoku :) this video was incredible to watch, I've been binge watching the videos on the channel. Please keep going!
I would love to see a reaction video from the constructor to one of these CtC solves. I imagine it would be fun watching someone go through your puzzle.
After throwing the towel I decided to watch the solve and the moment Simon uttered the name "Phistomefel" I went back in and did it! It took me two hours, but I did it! Thank you Simon for the assist, I enjoyed the solve greatly. TotallyNormalCat 👏 👏 👏
That’s the most amazing puzzle I’ve seen you solve! Sure, you may have missed some simple things, but the complex sets you figured out were unbelievable. How you do that I do not know. Loved the poem, well delivered!
That was one amazing puzzle & solves to watch. The difficulty, the drama and then the amazing poem by Poe to finish it, maybe even make me like this video more than the Miracle Sudoku one... (There, I've said it). I love this channel so much. I love you guys, the puzzles and the wonderful community as well. I've been here since before the James Charles and Kurt Hugo Schneider shooutouts and one of ny favorite things to do everyday, besides the above mentioned things, is looking at your subscribers total, getting a adrenaline rush every time there is another 1K added to it. No joke, I'll throw a party here when the 1 millionth sub ticks that button. What a journey so far! Thank you guys! You've made my life better and you are the highlight of my day! The best news? I still have Marks video to watch!
Word of the day! Largesse, meaning generosity in bestowing money or gifts upon others. "presumably public money is not dispensed with such largesse to anyone else" What a solve Simon. Amazing.
Classic Simon. After a great break in, he's floundering around trying to find some disjoint set rule to resolve the symmetry. Had he looked up when he placed the 7 in box 9, he'd have resolved it for free. With disjoint sets, it's even more important than usual to check after every placement, because spotting conflicts later on is just a fool's errand. Great puzzle, I thought I'd already done this when it came out, but apparently not.
Your voice is perfect for reciting poems and reading. I hope you make a channel of you just reading poems. That would be so peaceful and relaxing. I am only joking about making another channel, but I would 100% watch if you did do something like that.
Came to this puzzle late in the piece. The solution path I used was much the same. I saw early on that 3 & 4 could not go on the palindromes and then I got stuck. An embarrassingly long gap ensued before I realised that 1 & 2 also could not go on the palindromes. From that point, progress was straightforward. Loved that puzzle.
I usually watch CTC videos before going to sleep. It's just such a wonderful way to end my day - lying in bed and watching these videos. And I love when they are that long - feels like a detective movie :)
It's always amusing to me that you figure out these complex break-ins to puzzles I wouldn't even attempt, but then get bogged down in the middle because the complexity has numbed you to looking at regular sudoku most of the time. The one example I recall off the top of my head is the 7 at r6c1, which you could've had almost immediately once the palindromes were done, but got several minutes later after some more complicated thinking. :D
34:26 I feel that Simon's foundness of colouring is working against him at this point. I would remove the colouring which has done its superb job. Then I could notice the difference between the diagonals that run in the same direction and share cells due to the palindrome lines. That will give useful inequalities, e.g., the 14 and 24 little killers differ by 10 which need to come from one cell on the 14 diagonal and three cells on the 24 diagonal. That rules out the 9 on the 24: 9+3+3=15 is too high. At least, that would be my instinct. To actually pull this off is beyond my puny intellect. Go, Simon, go!
35:25 - the 34 pairs can be set to 33 along the 24 diag and 44 and the 26 diag ( leaving 34 for both 27 diag) that gives the same numbers for the two 27 diags (7 total) and a diff of 2 for the 24/26 diags (6/8)
I solved it! And then watched the video after. I think Simon is correct that at most points there were only a few things that could possibly have worked. In the beginning it had to be digit sets. But you don't need to use the exact sets Simon used; I used the 5 sets of 1-9 consisting of the corners and centers of each box, which, together with the palindrome lines, and then subtracting boxes 2, 4, 6, and 8, gives a similar break-in as Simon got. When it came to determining the digits that go on the palindromes to make 46, I immediately spotted they couldn't be 3s or 4s, but it took me forever to see that they couldn't be 1s or 2s. I think that was the hardest step for me. But after that it was fairly straightforward.
I understood the opening watching the video of you solve it, I tried solving it myself afterwards and I've no idea where to begin beyond proving the centre cells of each box add to the same as the corner cells of the corner boxes. You're too good at this Simon, you make it look approachable when even after watching the tricks I can't figure it out myself.
This is the lockpicking sudoku presenter and here we are going to try to crack this master sudoku open. Got a click out of five in the middle there. 1234 is in a false set. 6789 is binding. Got a little rotation (symmetry) now.....
I am regularly amazed by Simon (and Mark), but this is the most in awe I've felt since happening on this channel last year. Well, this and the world's most ridiculous naked single!
Although, as he's refusing to see the 6 and 7 he's just written into the corners of the boxes which disambiguate the outer little killers, I'm screaming internally :-)
Well this was one of the best puzzles I've seen here - amazing! Thank you as usual to Simon and of course to TNC. I took two clues from Simon and finally got there. First he mentioned Phistomefel Ring and that got me past my first stumbling block. I then continued to the point where I needed to eliminate numbers from the palindromes. I had deduced they could not be 3s or 4s using the standard Phistomefel Ring, but needed Simon to show me that they couldn't be 1s or 2s either. Then the puzzle came out easily.
For those interested, using the standard Philstomefel Ring, the corner 2x2 squares collectively contained two sets of the digits 1-2-3-4, so the central ring also had to contain these digits. The 12-pairs in row 5 and column 5 provided the 1s and 2s, and the 34-pairs in row 5 and column 5 meant that each edge of the Phistomefel Ring had to contain exactly one 3 or one 4. This then prevented the palindromes from containing 3s or 4s.
on the off-chance Simon is reading this (or someone else who finds it interesting): There is an alternative way of proving the extended Phistomefel ring. Simply take the standard ring, and swap rows 2&3, 7&8 and columns 2&3, 7&8. Since you're only swapping rows/columns with each other that run through the same boxes, those are symmetries of a Sudoku grid and therefore preserve the set equivalence of the original ring :)
I couldn't get the break-in, but after watching the proof of the greater Phistomefel ring I was able to work through the rest. Not seeing the break-in myself depressed me, but seeing the difficulty the rest gave Simon, which I did manage to solve, cheered me up quite a bit.
Having seen enough disjoint set puzzles on the channel, it occurs to me that "select disjoint set" would be a very useful button in the app. If you have a single cell selected, it could simply select the remaining cells in the matching disjoint set, to aid in scanning (or, rather, to save the time required to select the remaining members of the disjoint set.)
I've heard that an average person can hold about 7 different things in active memory. I can only assume that Simon, and the creators of all of these insane puzzles have an array of additional brains hidden away somewhere. I get the same feeling when watching chess masters describe a set of branching choices of moves ten steps out. It just doesn't seem possible to think that far and wide without dropping anything. I can barely remember a phone number in the time it takes to find a pencil, let alone an interlocking set of half a dozen distinct, logically consistent, potential trains of thought that each contain multiple branches and stops of their own. I am in awe.
I want a petition to change the name TotallyNormalCat into BastetCatGoddess. Only Gods and Immortals can build the sudoku equivalent of the mathematical formula of the kaleidoscope. The Monster From the Jaws of Hell, indeed!
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
What I really like about the channel is ... for how impossible these puzzles seem, I think I can always follow the logic as it's being explained. Most of the time, I can't even come close to _finding_ the logic myself (certainly not on something like this), but you do such a good job explaining each step as you go along, that nothing ever seems out of the blue.
Even the logic lost me at about expanded mephisto cage when he started cancelling colours
Especially Simon, I find that Mark moves so quickly I can't always follow his logic, but he's still amazing to watch.
@@Jabarri74 If you mean the Expanded Phistomephel's Ring, you could start by looking around the net (or somewhere in this channel) for the explanation of the original Phistomophel's Ring. Can't blame you for being lost, though. Set Theory is a branch of math I'm not comfortable with, myself.
I was casting this on the TV, and my wife was reading. Or was supposed to be reading. We watched the break in and she said "this is not for mortals".
Simon.. what are you?
At this point, I'm starting to think he's not mortal
Or just a nice alien?
@@capistro5 I'm thinking he's a god.
Simon is Artificial Intelligence trained in Google's dungeons :)
There are theories of course, but so far nobody has been both clever enough to figure it out and stupid enough to not realize why that kind of information shouldn't be public knowledge.
Proof Simon is the world’s greatest optimist: “Those of you who solved it, leave a comment below.”
LOL!!!!!!
At least there was no negative constraint on that...
Yeah the RUclips algorithm rewards engagement so he really shot himself in the foot on that one...
He *NEVER* uses pairs in a box. He gets 56 56 and it takes hime 10 minutes to remove the 6 from the 6789. Blargh! Tempted to click off.
Many of us do solve them, but we usually take twice as long as Simon.
Once upon a video dreary
Long I pondered weak and weary
Over a hard sudoku that would not crack.
A sudden gust blew open the shutters
And in the window there then fluttered
An ancient raven who perched upon a clothing rack.
As I stared at this intruder
I asked "Could this bird tutor
Me to find a solution track?"
Quoth the raven: "Quack!"
But when I looked into it's eyes
My mind seemed to be hypnotized
And images unbidden came to me.
Diamonds and rings of Phistomefel
Formed before me - seemed to tell
The way to add some digits to the grid.
In a fever, for an hour
Labored I with unknown power
Until the puzzle was only half done.
The I shouted "Demon bird!
Tell me now another word
That will let me complete this task!"
Quoth the raven: "OK Alexa! Tell him how to finish it!"
Quoth Alexa: "I thought you'd never ask!"
(Sorry - Edgar Allen Poe I'm not!)
pfff, FINE! Have an upvote for the rhymes! Also, huh ?!?
This is fantastic.
I love this!!
Maverick instead of raven 😜
7:07 “Everything here is average!” Not true! Your ability to solve these incredible puzzles and on top of that explain how you do it is certainly above average…
And the talent required to compose such a thing is indeed very far from average.
I took one look at the length of the video - then I took another look to confirm it - and then I sat down and watched the solve because I knew I was going to get nowhere. I'm delighted that i could occasionally take some line Simon suggested and work it out while it was being explained, but that's my limit for this puzzle. Still, the puzzles, the solve, and some poetry combine to make this the best video I've seen it the two years I've been watching CtC.
Rest assured, the next _best CtC video so far_ will be coming soon. These setters and solvers are Totally Fearless Animals.
Simon, I am in awe of your willingness to risk appearing a fool, yet persevering -- scanning, coloring, enduring mocking ducks, and resolving average little killer diagonals -- all the way to the solution. [Have you considered tackling world peace? ;-D]
Thank you Simon and Mark... for going through the weeds... so we learning solvers can watch excellent logic and solves and a few minor "Boobins"(Bobbins? EDIT yikes beansed that one up). I know it makes me happy seeing a monster solve all live at once.
I think he prefers to stick with things that might challenge him.
I often ask hypothetical "Have you considered..." questions of Simon! As a mathematician, I'd be quite happy if he got interested in some of the problems I'm trying to solve!
Quoth the Simon: this cell's a four
Because the Thermo, never more.
"tell me what I could have done better?". As you tap dance down the road of life juggling phistomaphel rings and disjoint sets, I am reminded to try and chew my bubblegum as I walk, What you do in your head I fail to do with excel spreadsheets. Keep putting out the great content, including the culture in the intros and outros. Well done sir.
Every time there's a puzzle by TotallyNormalCat on the channel, I feel like the rules should read "Totally normal sudoku rules apply."
Anyway, great video as always!
Next time I'm doing that :) :)
🤣🤣🤣🐱👍
It's too funny not to be a channel's meme.
A puzzle made for Simon's genius + a poem made for Simon's voice! Double pleasure!
Simon's ASMR poem reading in the outro deserves an exlusive playlist.
Agree!
Loved it.
That cry of utter despair when Simon thought he had a deadly pattern at the end made me feel so bad for him. And then the delight of solving it after noticing the disjoint set, great end to a great puzzle.
1:00:48 I am amazed that just after Simon has spent what feels like 15 minutes doing amazing logic proving that the yellow squares cannot contain 3 sixes due to there being a six in the purple/red squares; fails to use that 6 to disambiguate the symmetry of the 5-6 pairs.
He didn’t notice the 7 in box 9 fixing the 57 in box 3. I really think it’s the colours that mess up scanning. The 7 on the red/purple backing is hard to see.
@@Sarlat6 I can understand that he misses the scanning, there are a lot of pencil marks going on at this point. But he literally spent 10 minutes speaking about how the six (that ended up in box 1) forced there to be no more than 2 sixes in the yellows. And then don't use it to disambiguate box 7.
I am no good at this, so the only reason I knew was that he literally told me a few moments earlier :D
Come for the Sudoku. Stay for the convoluted layers of set theory.
Solves one of the most difficult puzzles. A minute later, "tell me what could i've done better".😄 Can you do some more of Edgar? It was fantastic.
re-watching after nearly 30 months. What a great puzzle. TotallyNormalCat, you are greatly missed and I hope you're still thinking about setting puzzles again in future.
“This is a joke. This is not fair. Everything is average.”
Sounds like my life.
The wise person accepts that, on average, one's life can never be better than average.
@@paulmdt1 “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
― George Bernard Shaw,
Yeah, I'm gonna need this on some merch!!!
"This is really horribly complicated" is the understatement of the year. I can barely follow his logic, but I do love to watch it.
Cracking the cryptic merch bad idea: "I beat totallynormalcat's crossroads" t shirt
You'll sell one. To Simon.
"I want to do a sudoku today"
The Monster From the Jaws of Hell
"Well, maybe not"
At least it's from the jaws of hell and not the bowels
To compensate, Mark posted a very approachable classic sudoku.
CTC The movie part 4. Grab some popcorn 🍿
🍿? Today deserves a whole 🍕
Woohoo. I can't wait to watch this
Aww yees
When you’re not solving amazing puzzles you should be an audiobook narrator 😀 what a beautiful expressive voice you have.
i actually started wondering if the poem would be there in the end, the way you talkes us through the intro. As i in the fact from seeing the video should know you solved it and thus the poem would be there.
You are very good at telling stories!
And solving unholy difficult puzzles!! Congrats Simon, great one!
Every time Simon solves one of these puzzles considered impossible by mere mortals like myself, he proves he is more than the equal of those geniuses creating them.
Simply amazing.
"I want these squares to cease being purple but I also want to cease them from being blue."
When logic.exe takes up all the RAM and grammar.exe starts glitching.
I'm lost for words.... how on earth do you possibly spot that logic????? Simon is a genius!
There were a few things I managed to catch before Simon, but I also wasn't draining every single brain cell for 45 minutes before they popped up. An absolute legend of a solver.
i'm halfway through the video and completely fascinated. brilliant job simon (and totallynormalcat)!
i feel like Simon would make an excellent teacher. there is zero chance in hell i would've come up with any of the logic he used to solve this puzzle, but him talking thru it was more than enough to understand & follow his train of thought. that's one of the reasons i keep coming back to this channel everyday, to see a master at work not only solve a puzzle i probably never could, but also make me understand how he did so!
1 hour 1 minute and 30 seconds "oh, oh, look! Sudoku is Finally helping me!"
At 56 minutes in, I was able to figure out a single thing you had not seen yet and cracked 3 more digits. I am proud of that small accomplishment.
You got it 2 minutes later.
This is one of the most beautiful puzzles I've seen on this channel, both in terms of the logic and the symmetry and simplicity of the starting grid.
This puzzle was insane but brilliant, some of the logic I wasn't able to follow, if there's ever a video that would warrant a commentary explaining the your logic throughout the video, it would be this one. I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say we'd love a video like that.
"I need more joy here"
-Simon "Marie Kondo" Sudokuman
Simon Sudokuman😂
I have been watching Simon solve these monstrously hard puzzles since about 250K subscribers and I have come to the conclusion that if he had gone into biochemistry he would have found a cure for cancer by now.
Jokes aside, I would like tiny little Simon voiceovers to his favorite poems and such. Crypting the Cracktic second channel for out-there unrelated videos?
I second that. There is ample room for Life, the Universe and Everything as a spin-off.
Great idea -- I'd subscribe in a heartbeat.
We Totally need a Totally Normal Cat set video for this absolute monstruosity
The fact that Simon will see the most absolutely horrifically hard thing, and then finds the hard way to do the simplest things too, gives me hope. Absolutely incredible solve.
I always find it fascinating how Simon fail to realise "simple" sudoku rules, once he start dwelling on his fast amount of puzzle knowledge to come up with extraordinary logic, leaving him to be completly focused, and unable to transition between clever solutions, and simple solutions. Kinda reminds me of a race of cleverness, and once the hard part is no longer required, he keeps seeking for the next "clever solution" though the simple onces have now presented them self.
Can't imagine the years of puzzle solving experiences, to require all of this knowledge, and logic deduction. Really enjoyable, despite when my mortal logic catches on, just eagerly waiting for you to see it too :)
For info, my logic caught on with the 6-7 presented, But it was a joy to witness
It looks like Simon is drawing sigils in the grid to invoke a demon to let him into the puzzle at first.
He's invoking Phistomefel
@@cliffthecrafter This comment seriously made me chuckle!
Re: the "deadly pattern" at the end: One interesting side effect of the box-positions disjoint sets rule is if the pairs of cells in a simple "aligned-pairs" deadly pattern do not occupy the exact same pairs of positions in their respective boxes, the pattern is not deadly and will be resolved by the disjoint sets.
That break-in was sublime.
(It's a good thing the poem is about Lenore, not Alexa though.)
Someone will get Alexa as a new setting name!
quoth alexa "I cannot connect to your wifi network"
Puzzle's feasibility unseeming, Simon solves with clever theming, yet alas it was the reading that left my jaw upon the floor.
Ok, so TotallyNormalCat is on the level of Phistomefel, imo.
To be fair, I don't think TNC would have been able to set this without the set theory rings that Phistomefel set in place, which Simon has proven time and again in these puzzles. But, that's true, both are geniuses of terrifying intellect.
@@flabort You are probably correct.
I think the difference is that Phistomefel mixes up old familiar logic in intricate, but very understandable way (after you get a hang on it). TNC, on the other hand, is aiming at pushing the boundaries of what human mind can solve without breaking, forcing the solver to think outside the box and create new neural pathways
If TotallyNormalCat and Phistomefel ever collaborate, our galaxy will implode.
@@HaitiLeonidas That puzzle would probably be the greatest sudoku to ever exist.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting that a unique solve with these rules could be found at all.
Touring old videos, I came across this one. First, Totally Normal Cat is an amazing genius. Full stop. Second, You are an amazing genius, Simon. I love that you could entirely explain the set theory, could discover the multiple layers of disjoint sets (not only the ones mentioned in the rules themselves, but others deriving from them, and the tiny little palindromes), could explain everything so clearly, belied by your actual scanning prowess your disclaimer that you were not good at disjoint ... and solve this amazing puzzle. I was in the mood today to watch something miraculous, and here it is. Thank you. But wait, there's more - I think I have read The Raven myself several times, but never gotten out of it what I did in listening to you read it at the end of this video. That alone is worth the price of admission. Simon, take a bow. (I have no idea whether you are notified of comments on these older videos, but I place this here to register my admiration regardless of whether anyone ever sees it.)
This one was so fun to watch and try to solve along with Simon. I am truly in awe with how many variations of set theory these outstanding setters use. Kudos on both the setting and solve!
I love thinking about the aesthetic choices setters make on how to indicate things that could be indicated in multiple different ways, "does this look better with two-cell palindromes or one-cell arrows or what?"
I was just faced with this choice recently, even spent some time comparing the different arrows and lines in different software.
I personally would've made one of the two cell palindromes 3 cells (adding a middle digit does nothing) just to annoy the people that would care about the symmetry and aesthetics
I think every time Simon got stuck, he needed to find something with normal sudoku. I imagine how amazing it would be if Simon teamed up with someone expert at scanning and did a speed solve. People seeing a 20 minute video expecting an easy puzzle would be disappointed.
That'd be awful, I always look for the 20 min vids to see which ones I might be able to solve in 2 hours
By the title alone I am excited to see this solve!
Edit: Well, already Simon is saying it’s impossible, so I’m even more excited to see him solve it now!
(Also who disliked the video already? How rude! >:( )
Can't ask for more. Genius puzzle, genius solve from the great Simon, and the poem at the end. This channel has added real joy to my everyday
Oh my god the thumbnail. Suddenly there came a tapping, tapping on the devil's door. Quoth the Simon: nevermore?
Omg you’re right- the thumbnail is incredible
Ah distinctly I remember, twas in the middle of June
When the intro turned to a bright piano tune
This is my 1st comment ever on this channel. I absolutely can not do these puzzles. But boy oh boy, do i adore these long videos. The puzzle that rekindled my love for Sudoku was the 1 by Mitchell Lee The miracle Sudoku with the 1 and 2 as the given digits. I had never tried any variant until i saw how Simon solved it. So i got the App for chess sudoku. I am loving the puzzles #8, #16, 19, #20 were pretty tough with the logic. But tried them a 2nd later on and was able to solve them fairly easily. My proudest solve has been #31 that was brutal. But i summoned my inner Simon and put myself in his shoes. How would he solve it? And it was like he was guiding me to the finish line. I felt so proud to finish the puzzle ik how he feels with solving the hardest of the hardest solves. Simon my friend. Thank you for taking us on a memorable ride on each of your videos. The agony of squeezing every ounce of logic in the puzzles is what makes you great. But the thrill you must feel when you solve them is amazing. You make me cry happy tears when you solve these puzzles. Theres times you make me cry from laughing.
My favorite line is when Simon says Bobbins!!
I think the way to go after 40:00 is to realise (as Simon did) that 1, 2, 3, 4 cannot go in the palindromes and then ask where 4 can go in the blue-green squares. The one with the 4 can yield a killer sum of minimum 4+5+6=15 and there is exactly one diagonal with the sum at least 15.
Tried it for a couple hours yesterday. Couldn't get the second digit in. Figured out a lot, but couldn't get any further. Today, I took another stab at it and finished it in 85:24. Getting that second digit is brutal. Heck, getting the first digit is quite insane. The disjoint set eliminating the 12's from the palindromes is what I simply couldn't see yesterday. Today, it was like the seas parted and the way forward just opened up before me. It was such an epiphany. Gotta watch the video now. I really have to see how Simon did this one.
edit: I'm watching at @49:00 and Simon is just floundering around. You got past the point where I got stuck. The break-in is determining that 1234 cannot go onto the palindromes. You've reached that point. The puzzle is solvable now. You know each pair of palindromes in each box has at least 56 on it. What does that add up to? 11. But only one small little killer is 15. That's the only one that allows a 4. That's the second digit that I was so happy to get that I mentioned above in my original comment. Weird that Simon got the 1234 removal from the palindromes fairly easy. That's where I got stuck. But the easy stuff, he loses sight of. This is not a criticism. Just an observation. I think Simon just got blindsided by too much math. Now, let's see how much longer it takes him to see it :) Really enjoying this video BTW. After struggling with it for so long, it's somewhat nice to see I wasn't alone in struggling with it. (edit2: YAY! He got it at @51:42, but Simon's scanning is completely shot. 20 minutes to use the 6 and 7. That's very unusual for Simon I have to say.)
Interestingly, I got the 1234's in row 5 and column 5 FIRST. You can do some fancy colouring and math to get there. Simon's way was much more elegant. You do need the expanded phisto ring later though.
28:38 There's a quadruple of 6/7/8/9s in c5 and r5 and a 5 in the center, so the double cells at the ends of c5 and r5 have to be 1/2/3/4s.
I'll be happily repeating this puzzle until I can see those structures for myself!
Thank you very much, Simon and TotallyNormalCat!
Never been so panicked by a video length as today, when around 1:10:00 it was (apparently) clear that it was about to solve and there was still more than 10 minutes left in the video. I got so worried for Simon that something unseen had gone horribly wrong and would have to get ripped apart. But no, it is just several relaxing minutes of The Raven to calm me back down after a satisfactory conclusion.
I did not expect that ending. It is fitting given Simon's aptitude for spontaneous poetry recital when stumped.
Can we all agree that we need more EAP readings by Simon!
Only five have solved it, mostly all of them known to be master solvers, and they state, "perhaps the most difficult sudoku I've ever done" ... so, Simon, you can't say you haven't been warned! It's amazing that you manage to do this on a live solve.
What probably many of us would want to know: how many puzzles did you try and didn't manage to solve, so no video came out of it. One for every 10 videos, one for every 50, ... ?
Simon, what an absolutely exceptional puzzle and an incredible live solve! Thank you so much to both you and Mark for sharing these puzzles and putting yourselves out there in solving them live.
The subset of what Simon knows and all the clever stuff out there is fairly large.
On the other end of the scale is me thinking, ‘That’s a pretty snowflake!’
You know, it's not just the fact that Simon solves these monstrously difficult puzzles, it's that he does it as a live solve, whilst remaining entertaining. I'm lost for words.
Such a beautiful puzzle and solve AND then topped off with that tiny Simon softly reading The Raven! Astounding. Please continue reading us poems.
I've been solving the difficult puzzles I've not yet tackled from Book 2, and this is the one that held me up longest. I found a "light" version of the break-in that gave me some of what I needed including some low digits and R5C5 and it was clear that I needed some of the other things to be disjoint sets. That took me a while to figure. Then I watched the video - I'd seen it first time round and completely forgotten it. Just astonishing how Simon sees some of those things so quickly. Amazing puzzle (truly one of the best) and amazing solve too.
For "light" break in try positions 13579 in each box (5 sets by disjoint). Transpose digits to boxes 2468 by palindrome. Make boxes 2468 a second colour (four sets). Delete common digits. Delete diagonals - and the whole of the original colour is gone - and do arithmetic on the cells that are left (including the central cell). But that is well short of what the puzzle needs. I got the 34 pairs at the ends of column 5 and row 5 before I worked out how to prove certain sets of cells had to contain distinct digits (it was at least clear that this was likely the way to go).
Simon does incredible logic deductions, but then it's somewhat funny to see him miss the simple sudoku :)
this video was incredible to watch, I've been binge watching the videos on the channel. Please keep going!
I would love to see a reaction video from the constructor to one of these CtC solves. I imagine it would be fun watching someone go through your puzzle.
After throwing the towel I decided to watch the solve and the moment Simon uttered the name "Phistomefel" I went back in and did it! It took me two hours, but I did it! Thank you Simon for the assist, I enjoyed the solve greatly.
TotallyNormalCat 👏 👏 👏
Only 20 minutes in and I'm seeing a million quadruples. Highs and lows. Simon hasn't seen it so I am 100% positive I am on a wrong path here.
That’s the most amazing puzzle I’ve seen you solve! Sure, you may have missed some simple things, but the complex sets you figured out were unbelievable. How you do that I do not know. Loved the poem, well delivered!
That was one amazing puzzle & solves to watch. The difficulty, the drama and then the amazing poem by Poe to finish it, maybe even make me like this video more than the Miracle Sudoku one... (There, I've said it).
I love this channel so much. I love you guys, the puzzles and the wonderful community as well.
I've been here since before the James Charles and Kurt Hugo Schneider shooutouts and one of ny favorite things to do everyday, besides the above mentioned things, is looking at your subscribers total, getting a adrenaline rush every time there is another 1K added to it.
No joke, I'll throw a party here when the 1 millionth sub ticks that button.
What a journey so far! Thank you guys! You've made my life better and you are the highlight of my day!
The best news? I still have Marks video to watch!
Word of the day! Largesse, meaning generosity in bestowing money or gifts upon others.
"presumably public money is not dispensed with such largesse to anyone else"
What a solve Simon. Amazing.
But you on the other hand must be brimming with largesse to bestow this little vocab tidbit to the CtC audience today! Thank you
Classic Simon. After a great break in, he's floundering around trying to find some disjoint set rule to resolve the symmetry. Had he looked up when he placed the 7 in box 9, he'd have resolved it for free. With disjoint sets, it's even more important than usual to check after every placement, because spotting conflicts later on is just a fool's errand.
Great puzzle, I thought I'd already done this when it came out, but apparently not.
I spent about 10 minutes stairing at this trying to find the beginning of a way to explore how to approach a break-in. Nope. Turned on the video.
Your voice is perfect for reciting poems and reading. I hope you make a channel of you just reading poems. That would be so peaceful and relaxing.
I am only joking about making another channel, but I would 100% watch if you did do something like that.
Came to this puzzle late in the piece. The solution path I used was much the same. I saw early on that 3 & 4 could not go on the palindromes and then I got stuck. An embarrassingly long gap ensued before I realised that 1 & 2 also could not go on the palindromes. From that point, progress was straightforward. Loved that puzzle.
I usually watch CTC videos before going to sleep. It's just such a wonderful way to end my day - lying in bed and watching these videos. And I love when they are that long - feels like a detective movie :)
It's always amusing to me that you figure out these complex break-ins to puzzles I wouldn't even attempt, but then get bogged down in the middle because the complexity has numbed you to looking at regular sudoku most of the time. The one example I recall off the top of my head is the 7 at r6c1, which you could've had almost immediately once the palindromes were done, but got several minutes later after some more complicated thinking. :D
Now its time for Simon to tackle that 2 hour beast from Gliperal that he's been holding onto for awhile!!! I would love to see that!!!
It makes me smile to hear Simon's very British accent and then when he says 'again' like an American southerner... 😊
34:26 I feel that Simon's foundness of colouring is working against him at this point. I would remove the colouring which has done its superb job. Then I could notice the difference between the diagonals that run in the same direction and share cells due to the palindrome lines. That will give useful inequalities, e.g., the 14 and 24 little killers differ by 10 which need to come from one cell on the 14 diagonal and three cells on the 24 diagonal. That rules out the 9 on the 24: 9+3+3=15 is too high.
At least, that would be my instinct. To actually pull this off is beyond my puny intellect.
Go, Simon, go!
1:00:01 ... and it appears my instinct stinks. Simon never ever needed that micro deduction I suggested.
35:25 - the 34 pairs can be set to 33 along the 24 diag and 44 and the 26 diag ( leaving 34 for both 27 diag) that gives the same numbers for the two 27 diags (7 total) and a diff of 2 for the 24/26 diags (6/8)
I solved it! And then watched the video after. I think Simon is correct that at most points there were only a few things that could possibly have worked. In the beginning it had to be digit sets. But you don't need to use the exact sets Simon used; I used the 5 sets of 1-9 consisting of the corners and centers of each box, which, together with the palindrome lines, and then subtracting boxes 2, 4, 6, and 8, gives a similar break-in as Simon got.
When it came to determining the digits that go on the palindromes to make 46, I immediately spotted they couldn't be 3s or 4s, but it took me forever to see that they couldn't be 1s or 2s. I think that was the hardest step for me. But after that it was fairly straightforward.
I understood the opening watching the video of you solve it, I tried solving it myself afterwards and I've no idea where to begin beyond proving the centre cells of each box add to the same as the corner cells of the corner boxes.
You're too good at this Simon, you make it look approachable when even after watching the tricks I can't figure it out myself.
@31:00 we talked about this Simon. Be nice for yourself.
This is the lockpicking sudoku presenter and here we are going to try to crack this master sudoku open.
Got a click out of five in the middle there. 1234 is in a false set. 6789 is binding. Got a little rotation (symmetry) now.....
I am regularly amazed by Simon (and Mark), but this is the most in awe I've felt since happening on this channel last year. Well, this and the world's most ridiculous naked single!
Although, as he's refusing to see the 6 and 7 he's just written into the corners of the boxes which disambiguate the outer little killers, I'm screaming internally :-)
Oh thank god
Petition: Let Simon become an audiobook narrator!
Well this was one of the best puzzles I've seen here - amazing! Thank you as usual to Simon and of course to TNC. I took two clues from Simon and finally got there. First he mentioned Phistomefel Ring and that got me past my first stumbling block. I then continued to the point where I needed to eliminate numbers from the palindromes. I had deduced they could not be 3s or 4s using the standard Phistomefel Ring, but needed Simon to show me that they couldn't be 1s or 2s either. Then the puzzle came out easily.
For those interested, using the standard Philstomefel Ring, the corner 2x2 squares collectively contained two sets of the digits 1-2-3-4, so the central ring also had to contain these digits. The 12-pairs in row 5 and column 5 provided the 1s and 2s, and the 34-pairs in row 5 and column 5 meant that each edge of the Phistomefel Ring had to contain exactly one 3 or one 4. This then prevented the palindromes from containing 3s or 4s.
New channel motto maybe?
"Come for the Sudoku, stay for the ASMR 19th century American poetry."
on the off-chance Simon is reading this (or someone else who finds it interesting): There is an alternative way of proving the extended Phistomefel ring. Simply take the standard ring, and swap rows 2&3, 7&8 and columns 2&3, 7&8. Since you're only swapping rows/columns with each other that run through the same boxes, those are symmetries of a Sudoku grid and therefore preserve the set equivalence of the original ring :)
I couldn't get the break-in, but after watching the proof of the greater Phistomefel ring I was able to work through the rest. Not seeing the break-in myself depressed me, but seeing the difficulty the rest gave Simon, which I did manage to solve, cheered me up quite a bit.
Having seen enough disjoint set puzzles on the channel, it occurs to me that "select disjoint set" would be a very useful button in the app. If you have a single cell selected, it could simply select the remaining cells in the matching disjoint set, to aid in scanning (or, rather, to save the time required to select the remaining members of the disjoint set.)
That was as amazing a display of logic as one could hope to watch.
I've heard that an average person can hold about 7 different things in active memory. I can only assume that Simon, and the creators of all of these insane puzzles have an array of additional brains hidden away somewhere.
I get the same feeling when watching chess masters describe a set of branching choices of moves ten steps out. It just doesn't seem possible to think that far and wide without dropping anything. I can barely remember a phone number in the time it takes to find a pencil, let alone an interlocking set of half a dozen distinct, logically consistent, potential trains of thought that each contain multiple branches and stops of their own.
I am in awe.
Such a good solve! Enjoy that cup of tea thoroughly!!
I want a petition to change the name TotallyNormalCat into BastetCatGoddess. Only Gods and Immortals can build the sudoku equivalent of the mathematical formula of the kaleidoscope. The Monster From the Jaws of Hell, indeed!
Fantastic genius! Loved watching you solve that!
WOW. Thank you solving these puzzles so I can appreciate them