The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[buchman]

I am new at this kind of puzzle and find it easy to do the medium difficulty, but have had no luck with the "hards". When I look at the solution suggestions, a terminology is used that I do not understand. What are "sets", for example. Is there somewhere that explains solution terms?

[ronk]

What are "sets", for example. Is there somewhere that explains solution terms?

Gaby Vanhegan has a good dictionary, but "set" is not currently included. I intended to attempt a definition until I saw this ...

"Sets are the most basic building blocks in mathematics, and it is in fact not easy to give a precise definition of the mathematical object set. Once sets are introduced, however, one can compare them, define operations similar to addition and multiplication on them, and use them to define new objects such as various kinds of number systems.

... so I'll just give a few examples.

{123456789} is the set of candidates for each row, col, and box of a 9 row x 9 col sudoku
{r1c1,r1c2,r1c3,r1c4,r1c5,r1c6,r1c7,r1c8,r1c9} is the set of cells in row 1
{r1c1,r1c2,r1c3,r2c1,r2c2,r2c3,r3c1,r3c2,r3c3} is the set of cells in box 1
{r1c1,r1c2,r1c3} is the (sub)set of cells in the intersection of row 1 and box 1
{124} might be the set of candidates at the intersection noted above

[QBasicMac]

ronk made a good definition.

The short answer to your question re "sets" is that "set" is not a SuDoku jargon term. It is standard English in wide use long before SuDoku came into being. Perhaps the German equivalent is "gruppe".

Mac

[Cec]

I am new at this kind of puzzle and .... when I look at the solution suggestions, a terminology is used that I do not understand. What are "sets", for example. Is there somewhere that explains solution terms?

Hi buchman,
I suspect you are looking for more than just knowing about "sets".
I suggest you read the first part of this thread (click on this blue 'thread') which suggests terminology to be used if submitting posts to this forum.

Not sure what you mean by "solution terms" but again assuming you mean help to solve puzzles then the following sites (again just click on them) have become highly recommended in explaining various puzzle solving techniques:
http://www.angusj.com/sudoku/hints.php
http://www.simes.clara.co.uk/programs/sudokutechniques.htm

Hope this helps you - if not then let us know.

Cec