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An unexpected use of primes: solving sudokus by calculator
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 January 2015
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This essay demonstrates an application of prime numbers to the development of a calculator program that solves sudoku puzzles. Among the positive integers, the primes—numbers with exactly two divisors, the numbers themselves and 1—are central to our thinking about numbers. They give us a basis for factoring and divisibility and they contribute to the solution of many problems in the mathematical field of number theory. More important for the purposes of this paper, they provide a way of representing numbers uniquely by prime factors. For example, 6221592 = 23 × 32 × 13 × 172 × 23, any other factorisation differing only in the order of factors.
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