MCMC: for Sudoko and finding Magic Squares

We're doing MCMC, in the Mon Sep 1 ff week, and indeed later on. Check how Nils solved his first ever sudoku puzzle, by using 12 hours to set up & code up a class of MCMCs and then let it run for a million times (where "one million", taking 1 minute, is a ridiculoulsy *small* number, given the state space of 116,121,600 possibilities). 

Nils has also used MCMC to find magic squares, say of size 10 x 10 (all rows, all columns, both diagonals, sum to 505); see Story #85. We don't this as an "explicit exercise" in this course, but look it through, try your hand, find a magic 6 x 6 square.

https://www.mn.uio.no/math/english/research/projects/focustat/the-focustat-blog!/sudokustory.html

https://www.mn.uio.no/math/english/research/projects/focustat/the-focustat-blog!/gaudisquare.html 

Published Sep. 2, 2025 1:57 PM - Last modified Sep. 2, 2025 1:57 PM