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AZ Matt



Joined: 03 Nov 2005
Posts: 63
Location: Hiding under my desk in Phoenix AZ USA

PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 9:28 pm    Post subject: Question Reply with quote

Do clues have to be symetrical Question
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David Bryant



Joined: 29 Jul 2005
Posts: 559
Location: Denver, Colorado

PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 10:09 pm    Post subject: An answer -- and another question Reply with quote

No, the clues don't have to be symmetrical. See some of the 17-clue sudokus at Gordon Royle's web site for examples.

Most published puzzles do exhibit rotational symmetry (1/2 rotation). I think that's been copied from crossword puzzles, which wouldn't have to be symmetrical, but almost always are.

Now, who is Hanlon? I guess he's not paranoid ... dcb
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someone_somewhere



Joined: 07 Aug 2005
Posts: 275
Location: Munich

PostPosted: Fri Dec 09, 2005 8:21 am    Post subject: Hanlon's Razor Reply with quote

Hi David,

Here some nice info from Wikipedia about Hanlon's Razor:

Hanlon's Razor, a corollary of Finagle's law (see also Murphy's law) and/or Occam's Razor, reads:

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
The term's derivation is unknown. A similar epigram has been attributed to William James among others. According to Joseph Bigler the quote first came from someone named Robert J. Hanlon as a submission for a book compilation of various jokes related to Murphy's law.

A similar quote appears in Robert A. Heinlein's 1941 short story Logic of Empire ("You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity"), so some claim Hanlon's Razor is a corruption of "Heinlein's Razor."

The aphorism is also widely attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte.

Observations on the sway of human error over malice occur in various works. Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) mentions "...misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice. At any rate, the last two are certainly much less frequent."

Hanlon's Razor is a favorite of hackers, often showing up in sig blocks, fortune files, and the login banners of BBS systems and commercial networks.

Stupidity seems to be the default answer. As the late Frank Zappa observed, "There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life."

P.S. I think that that's relevant for Sudoku Twisted Evil

see u,
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AZ Matt



Joined: 03 Nov 2005
Posts: 63
Location: Hiding under my desk in Phoenix AZ USA

PostPosted: Fri Dec 09, 2005 10:17 pm    Post subject: Coerrection Reply with quote

Quote:
Hanlon's Razor, a corollary of Finagle's law (see also Murphy's law) and/or Occam's Razor, reads


Occam's Razor reads:
Quote:
One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.


Or, more simply, all things being equal, the simplest solution is the correct one.

Occam's razor is a logical principle attributed to the mediaeval philosopher William of Occam (or Ockham). Mathematically, it is indespensable to building models and central to all applied mathematical knowledge, but, interestingly, it is not "provably" true theoretically except to say it seemingly works.
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