论文部分内容阅读
翻译：David Lee
Do You Sudoku？
There is a monster on the loose[放纵], and it is out to eat your brain. Sudoku, a seemingly simple numbers game, has become the biggest puzzle craze to hit the world since the Rubik’s Cube注1.
It’s all over the newspapers, the television and the Internet now, yet its phenomenal[非凡的] popularity raises some puzzling questions.
Such as why, in a high-speed, hyper[过度的]-technological age, without noticeable promotion, would millions of people become addicted to[沉迷于] a game invented more than 200 years ago by a blind Swiss mathematician[数学家]?
Has math phobia[恐惧症], so widespread among old and young, gone and taken a jump[突然流行]? Can Sudoku interest kids in numbers, doing for school math what Harry Potter has done for reading in the age of TV and computers?
“sudoku is bound to make kids interested in math, even those who run away from the subject, as it is very enjoyable,a high school math teacher says. “A child needs to juggle[巧妙应付] a lot of factors simultaneously[同时地] to solve a Sudoku puzzle, so it sharpens his reasoning and computation[计算] skills.”
Why is Sudoku fun? The simple answer might be that puzzles are fun and new puzzles even more fun. But the truth is more complicated.
Humans have been puzzling since the dawn of time, and the ability to think logically has long been recognized by science as a key element of natural selection. All societies puzzle but, as a rule, the most successful ones puzzle more.
“You cannot find a culture, no matter how technologically primitive[原始的] or advanced, that does not have puzzle traditions,an expert says.
In this sense, Sudoku is neither new nor old. The game requires you to fill in a 9×9 square grid[九宫格] (broken down into nine mini grids) with the numbers one to nine, arranged in such a way that each line, column[纵列] and mini grid contains one of each number. The objective is childishly simple, yet infuriatingly[令人气愤地] difficult to achieve.
Sudoku, or something very similar to it, was invented in the 1780s by Leonhard Euler注2. When he lost his sight in early middle age and was unable to work from books, he developed the ability to compute complex sums in his head and a talent for composing puzzles.
He then invented a grid-based puzzle and named it“Ｌatin Squares.”It was, in all material aspects, identical to[与……一致] Sudoku, yet it remained barely noticed until it turned up, renamed “Ｎumber Place,”in America in the 1980s.
It was spotted by an employee of a Japanese puzzle magazine. The Japanese made the game slightly more difficult and renamed it Sudoku. Today there are at least five Japanese Sudoku magazines with a total circulation[发行量] of 660,000.
Sudoku’s undisputed[无疑的] high priest is Wayne Gould, a retired Hong Kong judge who has done more to popularize the puzzle in the West than anyone on the planet. On a trip to Tokyo in 1997, the New Zealander came across a Sudoku book in a shop. Not speaking Japanese, he thought it was some kind of crossword. As a lifelong puzzle addict, he was intrigued[激起兴趣]. For six years, Gould worked on a computer program to write the puzzles. His first published Sudoku grid appeared in 2004. After he gave it for free to UK newspapers, the game took off.
Crime writer P.D. James has suggested that puzzles ultimately serve our desire for “a restoration[恢复] of order.We want, she says, to know that things have a core logic and a definitive[无可置疑的] answer.
So in the West today, they are out there, in every home, on every metro[地铁] train, in every office. Scribbling[乱涂], scratching[搔], swearing...sudokuing. Will it be the puzzle that ate the world one day?
有只怪兽被释放出来了，它将出来耗尽你们的脑汁。这就是数独—这个看似简单的数字游戏掀起了继鲁比克魔方之后最轰动世界的智力游戏热潮。
数独游戏如今遍布报纸、电视和互联网，但其不一般的流行引出了一些耐人寻味的问题。
比如，为什么在这样一个高速发展、过度科技化的时代，这个两百多年前由一位瑞士盲人数学家发明的游戏没有经过什么大张旗鼓的推广，却能令成千上万人沉溺其中？
莫非在各个年龄层都普遍存在的数学恐惧症已经成为过去，数学突然大受欢迎？在这个电视和电脑的时代，数独能否像哈利·波特激励阅读那样推动数学的影响，让孩子对数字产生兴趣？
“数独可以使孩子们对数学产生兴趣，哪怕是不喜欢这门科目的人，因为这种游戏非常有趣，”一位高中数学老师说，“小孩在解数独谜的时候需要同时考虑很多问题，这就可以提高他的推理和计算能力。”
为什么数独游戏会充满乐趣呢？一个简单的回答就是也许智力游戏本来就很有趣，新的游戏则更加充满乐趣。但真相远比这个答案要复杂得多。
人类自古以来就一直对各种事情充满疑问，逻辑思考能力更一直被科学界认为是物竞天择的关键因素之一。所有的文明社会都有各种各样的疑问，但作为一个定律，越是先进的社会，疑惑的问题也越多。
“你无法找到一种没有谜题传统的文化，无论这种文化在技术上是原始还是先进，”一位专家这么说。
在这种意义上，数独既不新鲜也不腐旧。 这种游戏要求在9×9的九宫格（每个大格又被分成九个小格）内填入数字1至9，使整个大九宫格的每一列、每一行和每个小九宫格都出现不重复的数字1到9。这个目标简单得幼稚，但实际上，其难度足以让你抓狂。
数独或者类似的游戏，是数学家伦哈特·欧拉于18世纪80年代发明的。他在中年失去了视力，无法看书研究，便逐渐练成心算复杂数目的能力，同时也炼就了他出谜题的才能。
后来他发明了一种格子智力游戏，并把它命名为“拉丁方块”。这种游戏与数独已经基本一样，只是在当时还未被人重视，直到20世纪80年代在美国被重命名为“数字位置”后，才受到人们的关注。
这个游戏随后被一名日本智力游戏杂志的员工发现。日本人稍微增加了游戏的难度，重新将其命名为“数独”。今天（在日本）至少有5本数独专门杂志，发行总量达66万册。
香港退休法官高乐德无疑是数独游戏的高等祭司，他是数独游戏在西方传播的最大功臣。1997年在东京旅行时，这位新西兰人在一家商店偶然发现了一本关于数独的书，由于不懂日语，他以为那是某种纵横填字游戏。作为一个智力游戏的超级粉丝，他顿时被深深吸引了。高乐德花了六年时间编写这种游戏的电脑程序。2004年，铅字印刷的高乐德数独游戏首次出现在西方。他把游戏免费提供给英国的各大报纸，数独便从此流行起来了。
犯罪小说作家P·D·詹姆斯指出，智力游戏从根本上来说都是为了实现我们希望“恢复秩序”的愿望。她认为我们都想确认所有的事物都有一个核心的逻辑，大家都想得到一个确定的最终答案。
所以在如今的西方，每家每户，每趟地铁里，每个办公室里，人们纷纷投身于数独大潮。大家都在涂涂画画，抓耳挠腮，指天骂地……他们都在数独着。将来，这个智力游戏会把全世界都卷进来吗？
Do You Sudoku？
There is a monster on the loose[放纵], and it is out to eat your brain. Sudoku, a seemingly simple numbers game, has become the biggest puzzle craze to hit the world since the Rubik’s Cube注1.
It’s all over the newspapers, the television and the Internet now, yet its phenomenal[非凡的] popularity raises some puzzling questions.
Such as why, in a high-speed, hyper[过度的]-technological age, without noticeable promotion, would millions of people become addicted to[沉迷于] a game invented more than 200 years ago by a blind Swiss mathematician[数学家]?
Has math phobia[恐惧症], so widespread among old and young, gone and taken a jump[突然流行]? Can Sudoku interest kids in numbers, doing for school math what Harry Potter has done for reading in the age of TV and computers?
“sudoku is bound to make kids interested in math, even those who run away from the subject, as it is very enjoyable,a high school math teacher says. “A child needs to juggle[巧妙应付] a lot of factors simultaneously[同时地] to solve a Sudoku puzzle, so it sharpens his reasoning and computation[计算] skills.”
Why is Sudoku fun? The simple answer might be that puzzles are fun and new puzzles even more fun. But the truth is more complicated.
Humans have been puzzling since the dawn of time, and the ability to think logically has long been recognized by science as a key element of natural selection. All societies puzzle but, as a rule, the most successful ones puzzle more.
“You cannot find a culture, no matter how technologically primitive[原始的] or advanced, that does not have puzzle traditions,an expert says.
In this sense, Sudoku is neither new nor old. The game requires you to fill in a 9×9 square grid[九宫格] (broken down into nine mini grids) with the numbers one to nine, arranged in such a way that each line, column[纵列] and mini grid contains one of each number. The objective is childishly simple, yet infuriatingly[令人气愤地] difficult to achieve.
Sudoku, or something very similar to it, was invented in the 1780s by Leonhard Euler注2. When he lost his sight in early middle age and was unable to work from books, he developed the ability to compute complex sums in his head and a talent for composing puzzles.
He then invented a grid-based puzzle and named it“Ｌatin Squares.”It was, in all material aspects, identical to[与……一致] Sudoku, yet it remained barely noticed until it turned up, renamed “Ｎumber Place,”in America in the 1980s.
It was spotted by an employee of a Japanese puzzle magazine. The Japanese made the game slightly more difficult and renamed it Sudoku. Today there are at least five Japanese Sudoku magazines with a total circulation[发行量] of 660,000.
Sudoku’s undisputed[无疑的] high priest is Wayne Gould, a retired Hong Kong judge who has done more to popularize the puzzle in the West than anyone on the planet. On a trip to Tokyo in 1997, the New Zealander came across a Sudoku book in a shop. Not speaking Japanese, he thought it was some kind of crossword. As a lifelong puzzle addict, he was intrigued[激起兴趣]. For six years, Gould worked on a computer program to write the puzzles. His first published Sudoku grid appeared in 2004. After he gave it for free to UK newspapers, the game took off.
Crime writer P.D. James has suggested that puzzles ultimately serve our desire for “a restoration[恢复] of order.We want, she says, to know that things have a core logic and a definitive[无可置疑的] answer.
So in the West today, they are out there, in every home, on every metro[地铁] train, in every office. Scribbling[乱涂], scratching[搔], swearing...sudokuing. Will it be the puzzle that ate the world one day?
有只怪兽被释放出来了，它将出来耗尽你们的脑汁。这就是数独—这个看似简单的数字游戏掀起了继鲁比克魔方之后最轰动世界的智力游戏热潮。
数独游戏如今遍布报纸、电视和互联网，但其不一般的流行引出了一些耐人寻味的问题。
比如，为什么在这样一个高速发展、过度科技化的时代，这个两百多年前由一位瑞士盲人数学家发明的游戏没有经过什么大张旗鼓的推广，却能令成千上万人沉溺其中？
莫非在各个年龄层都普遍存在的数学恐惧症已经成为过去，数学突然大受欢迎？在这个电视和电脑的时代，数独能否像哈利·波特激励阅读那样推动数学的影响，让孩子对数字产生兴趣？
“数独可以使孩子们对数学产生兴趣，哪怕是不喜欢这门科目的人，因为这种游戏非常有趣，”一位高中数学老师说，“小孩在解数独谜的时候需要同时考虑很多问题，这就可以提高他的推理和计算能力。”
为什么数独游戏会充满乐趣呢？一个简单的回答就是也许智力游戏本来就很有趣，新的游戏则更加充满乐趣。但真相远比这个答案要复杂得多。
人类自古以来就一直对各种事情充满疑问，逻辑思考能力更一直被科学界认为是物竞天择的关键因素之一。所有的文明社会都有各种各样的疑问，但作为一个定律，越是先进的社会，疑惑的问题也越多。
“你无法找到一种没有谜题传统的文化，无论这种文化在技术上是原始还是先进，”一位专家这么说。
在这种意义上，数独既不新鲜也不腐旧。 这种游戏要求在9×9的九宫格（每个大格又被分成九个小格）内填入数字1至9，使整个大九宫格的每一列、每一行和每个小九宫格都出现不重复的数字1到9。这个目标简单得幼稚，但实际上，其难度足以让你抓狂。
数独或者类似的游戏，是数学家伦哈特·欧拉于18世纪80年代发明的。他在中年失去了视力，无法看书研究，便逐渐练成心算复杂数目的能力，同时也炼就了他出谜题的才能。
后来他发明了一种格子智力游戏，并把它命名为“拉丁方块”。这种游戏与数独已经基本一样，只是在当时还未被人重视，直到20世纪80年代在美国被重命名为“数字位置”后，才受到人们的关注。
这个游戏随后被一名日本智力游戏杂志的员工发现。日本人稍微增加了游戏的难度，重新将其命名为“数独”。今天（在日本）至少有5本数独专门杂志，发行总量达66万册。
香港退休法官高乐德无疑是数独游戏的高等祭司，他是数独游戏在西方传播的最大功臣。1997年在东京旅行时，这位新西兰人在一家商店偶然发现了一本关于数独的书，由于不懂日语，他以为那是某种纵横填字游戏。作为一个智力游戏的超级粉丝，他顿时被深深吸引了。高乐德花了六年时间编写这种游戏的电脑程序。2004年，铅字印刷的高乐德数独游戏首次出现在西方。他把游戏免费提供给英国的各大报纸，数独便从此流行起来了。
犯罪小说作家P·D·詹姆斯指出，智力游戏从根本上来说都是为了实现我们希望“恢复秩序”的愿望。她认为我们都想确认所有的事物都有一个核心的逻辑，大家都想得到一个确定的最终答案。
所以在如今的西方，每家每户，每趟地铁里，每个办公室里，人们纷纷投身于数独大潮。大家都在涂涂画画，抓耳挠腮，指天骂地……他们都在数独着。将来，这个智力游戏会把全世界都卷进来吗？