How Can THIS Have A Solution?

[@amoswittenbergsmusings]

A brainy sudokist in Somerset Cracked puzzles like eggs for an omelette. His language stayed gentle While his viewers went mental And “Bobbins!” became his new sobriquet.

[@TheWebcrafter]

Has no-one yet ventured to say? “That limerick’s more than OK” You’re no mere apprentice A ‘Master Word Artist’? I think so, so send more my way.

[@FolgoreCZ]

Simon, a person who can find insanely convoluted piece of logic to start almost any puzzle and then struggles to fill in a column with 8 given digits. :-D

[@_Uptilt]

Or that blue thermometer at the start! Even great minds can miss really simple things at times!

[@med4g59]

ikrrrr, i was panicking when he didnt fill in the 3 in r7 for like 3 minutes

[@NYsummertimeCHI]

@@med4g59 Yeah, but I get the impression he was thinking ahead and looking for something that might be a little more meaningful. That 3 wouldn’t have really helped to progress the solve at all.

[@dcross3641]

@@NYsummertimeCHI Probably, might’ve just missed it though. I do think he was looking for something more useful though.

[@Moolers]

When you have to keep track of nine rows, nine columns, nine boxes and god knows what else, it's easy to miss something obvious. I was once stuck on a puzzle for an hour because I somehow overlooked that there was only one place for the 2 in a column.

[@Jodawo]

I think it was a great puzzle. A simple clean design and easy ruleset. You have been giving us at least two videos a day for many months and I want to thank you and Mark for doing that. I am sure that we are all very grateful. Since this is Thanksgiving Day if only in America I still want to give thanks for this show keeping us entertained during this pandemic. I also want to thank you and Mark for being so diligent day after day.

[@DWestheim]

"This can't be a seven and a half" (looks at his sudoku) (starts erasing)

[@PauxloE]

If a thermometer touches itself, you can just cut out the loop, and it is still a valid thermometer. So we don't need to prove that it can't, we can just ignore the loop.

[@jothki]

If you assume that the thermometers are part of the unique solution, then that also means that any wobbling paths must be impossible because if they weren't the solution would be ambiguous.

[@waynemv]

@@jothki I would not assume the thermometers are part of the unique solution. Isn't it only the digits in the solution that rules actually require be unique? In theory, solving the puzzle might not require identifying every thermometer path, as long as all potential thermometer paths imply the same arrangement of digits.

[@jaeusa160]

That's a great observation!

[@arkb0t379]

@@jothki using uniqueness to rule out options makes some folks very grumpy

[@AJMansfield1]

​@@waynemv Fair point, but even if the thermos _are_ nonunique, all this argument is really doing is discarding all but the least-restrictive possible path; it's not actually generating any new information from the uniqueness itself. Although the reverse argument --- that you can't have a pair of digits beside the thermo that would let you _add_ an extra squiggle --- indeed does depend on the thermo paths being unique in order to be a valid inference.

[@johnpauladamovsky86]

I feel like I'm stealing all of these beautiful puzzles from a walled-garden which I broke into. What an absolutely splendid way to kill 38 minutes. I genuinely hope the competitive spirit of the CTC puzzle showcase continues forever. Simon needs to start grooming his replacement.

[@tstacey2000]

22:49 Alternate logic: if a thermometer orthogonally touches itself, you can also produce a valid thermometer which "skips" over at the orthogonal connection, so as there is no negative constraint in this puzzle, orthogonal connections should be avoided.

[@Vallam23]

a negative constraint would be impossible because every two cells is a valid thermo in one direction or the other

[@jkid1134]

I was going to say, no kinks allowed if you want to preserve uniqueness :) 1234 in a thermo where 1 and 4 touch can never be disambiguated, for example

[@wariolandgoldpiramid]

I've seen the idea of built-your-own thermos discussed in the Discord server, and I'm happy it happened.

[@mathemitmanger3913]

Very nice and clever puzzle - with a decent amount of traps, but very enjoyable once you avoid them. And always remember: Don't wiggle your thermos too much or it will break.

[@clarematthews4051]

Spotted the puzzle on the server before going to sleep last night. Really pleased to find it here this morning. Really brilliant and impossible looking puzzle idea. Solved in 30 minutes. Enjoyable from start to finish. Looking forward to watching the solve later - a lunch date with Simon!

[@GalacticGod]

Really cool and original puzzle. Loved it!

[@BillMiller55]

My first solve of a no number given although I may have inadvertently guessed correctly on one of the thermos.

[@tabularasa0606]

The creativity of the creators is really astounding. Lovely original puzzle.

[@DisturbedNeo]

For a moment there, I thought Simon wasn’t going to colour that thermo in.

[@ayakoa2096]

Got me close to a heart attack

[@ajtowns]

This is the sort of edge of your seat tension the top KZbin content creators only dream of.

[@Vallam23]

finger was hovering over unsubscribe

[@balkthor]

I like to come back to old puzzles. 18 months later I still love this puzzle, and it i is indeed fantastic setting. Very well done, I absolutely love this one. Specifically, I think based on this ruleset this is one of the most "efficient" puzzles on the channel. It's very minimal in its clues, and yet each one is elegantly placed in such a way that it constantly eliminates multiple options. This is truly A+ setting, some of the best in CTC.

[@brucerose4383]

There's been so much variety lately .. hard to believe all this var. on a theme is possible with Sudoku .. so entertaining ..bravo to setter .. a great concept .. I'm getting to the point where I can try puzzles with > 30 min. solves .. but I make mistakes and paint into a corner .. new app. is much, much better for solving .. so many improvements .. thx CTC ... many hours of enjoyment thanks to you ..

[@maverickstclare3756]

Woo Done. In case anyone is interested, the distance between two squares in a grid is called The Manhattan Distance, though some people use The Taxi Cab Distance. Based on the distance a taxi cab would travel in a grid based road system, such as the one in Manhattan. If you simply count across and then down, that is the shortest distance, even though there may be other routes of the same distance. Also useful to know in games like Factorio, which are on a square grid. Your belts can never be shorter than a simple path with a single right angle.

[@yoavshati]

I'll add that if you generalize this to work with cartesian coordinates, you get the d1 metric. Also, the Pythagorean theorem in that geometry is just a+b=c, which is neat

[@prahas777]

What a marvelous puzzle. It's amazing that new variations keep coming in. I feel like this variation has the potential to inspire others to create more of them. // I wonder to what extent CTC is impacting the creativity of the puzzle creators. I suspect your plurk (play/work) is rippling out into the puzzle-sphere, in a wonderful way.

[@indubio1]

They definitely inspired me! I never imagined I’d be designing sudokus, but here I am.

[@DCxMiLK]

"Don't let your snake touch itself orthogonally." -Simon 2020 Wise words.

[@michaelpdawson]

Took me just over an hour: 20 minutes to screw it up and 40 minutes to start over and get it right!

[@OmaiGrundles]

I'm just waiting for a puzzle to come out that DOES contain a shrodinger cell, just to mess with Simon

[@thatpuzzleguy]

I had the 78 pair in the red thermo unresolved until I was staring at an L-shaped deadly pattern for several moments at the end of the puzzle. You might have heard my forehead smack from across the ocean. Aside from that, really lovely solve.

[@louievanvoorst6349]

Ladies and gentlemen, we've found him. The most wholesome man on the internet

[@davidhughes7174]

Gentle Human

[@bethelliot7140]

🤗

[@rogerstone3068]

I don't know anyone else in the universe who can talk about not touching yourself orthogonally without raising at least a little throat-clearing.

[@johnblazer7661]

cept for the snake jokes ;)

[@duncanmatthews1977]

We’ve been hooked on CTC since Nov.. Found it very interesting today to go back and watch the early posts from 2017... he’s not even the same man. Totally different mannerisms. With these recent, unorthodox sudokus he’s like a kid in a sweet shop...

[@kslingsby]

Lovely puzzle, and the first one of Simon’s I’ve managed to finish before watching the video for quite a while!

[@mikeherring9231]

"Please, call me Glum. Mr. Hippo is my father."

[@th3manias]

Congrats on 1501 :) and here's to the next milestone 2000 !!

[@jarboen]

Why is this so mezmerizing and relaxing? I love it!

[@Felixkeeg]

Got the thermos in after 32 minutes, took me 55 minutes total. Feel like I am improving

[@adamtaylor5040]

Really fun working out where the thermometers go. Don't let them wiggle too much.

[@rebmcr]

Surprised myself how well I did! 36:58, only a few minutes behind Simon. :)

[@LDFeyre]

i love it, when your voice gets a slightly high pitch, when you break through a hard sudoku puzzle :D greetings from germany btw^^

[@priyambhushan8782]

Easily one of my favourite innovations I've come across recently! Loved it 😍

[@deszeldra]

Thanks so much for sharing the Fibonacci poem, and yes the sudoku was great too!

[@Corisu]

Every time I solve a puzzle on a CtC video I feel so accomplished! My time was abysmal but my heart is full!

[@gordonglenn2089]

Great puzzle, interesting without being terribly difficult.

[@scfreiburgundgenialdaneben474]

That's a great kind of Thermo Sudoku. I'm a huge fan of snake Sudokus and Thermo sudokus so this is the coalition I didn't know I was looking for but enjoy even more now :)

[@f.b.jeffers0n]

That poem came out of the blue, and I really like it; yes I do!

[@jondorthebrinkinator]

29:30 You can get the 8 in R2C7 at this point because if the yellow thermometer traverses row 1, it must include a 7. Unfortunately, it doesn't yield any more progress or make the purple thermometer easier to solve.

[@tezcharold]

I feel that with the amount of times Simon has mentioned Schrödinger's cells in a lot of puzzles, it is bound to be only a matter of time before some clever setter comes up with a Schrödinger's Sudoku variant.

[@aronlide]

I was thinking the same thing. :) The "Schrödinger cell" might be a reference to a video from a couple of years ago: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mJ-znqB3msdgias

[@956675]

That would be a really cool puzzle that I would love to see. Just can't imagine how you could make it unique.

[@Nighthound]

Simon solved a puzzle that had an idea like that (kzbin.info/www/bejne/mmOqdmeoespqq6c), where the 10 cell cages could contain one of the 4 possible combinations until they are disambiguated later on

[@aronlide]

@@Nighthound Yeah, that was a cool puzzle. :)

[@CilantroGamer]

31:43, very cool puzzle! Fun solve path, didn't really get caught anywhere for too long. Really clever tricks to keep moving. Now to watch the video!

[@erickehr4475]

26:19 for me. But I must admit I bifurcated to get the thermo in the bottom right. Interested to see how Simon handles it. ETA. So I forgot to pencilmark the 9s in box 9. If I’d have done that I’d have spotted the logical path.

[@marceljones7940]

it took me about an hour. after about 45 min I also bifurcated the thermo in the bottom right :)

[@AJMansfield1]

Note that if the thermos are unique, then they in fact _can't_ touch themselves orthogonally in this ruleset. If one _did_ touch itself orthogonally, you could derive another valid thermometer between that same bulb/tip by taking a shortcut across that orthogonal touch. (And in fact, you can use this in reverse to disprove a digit, e.g. if you had 1256 on a thermo and a 3 above the 2, that would disprove the existence of a 4 above that 5 since that would make it possible to jog upward and give two possible thermos.)

[@HalfBakedLunatic]

Very nice, original idea!

[@davidboyeswahn4654]

Ahhh, How satisfying :D :D :D first sudoku in a long time solved before i watched Simon/Mark's Solutions

[@markiogaming74]

It took me 1:16:29, but I can proudly say I've solved this Sudoku all on my own. Absolutely wonderful Sudoku to solve!

[@Trandhal]

At 29:00 the 8 in box three can actually be placed immediately. If the 8 is in the middle of box three, the yellow thermo-end would have to be a maximum of 6 (since there is a 9 and a 7 triple in the box plus the 8 that was just placed. And the yellow thermobulb would then have to snake its way up and left to reach the 6, passing through the field of potential 7's. Therefore the thermo would go something like (Unknown starting digit) -> 7 -> 6, which is impossible. First time I've ever spotted something that Simon missed, which I'm a bit proud of!

[@artursruseckis4242]

Great puzzle. Got stuck in position at 32:00 (actually bit further, since thermo in box 3 MUST end with 8 since it goes through 7), but I couldnt myself to think through the missing 8 in box9 thermo. Enjoyed it a lot.

[@mmilley]

A useful (for me) change to the instructions would be to change the last sentence to read: "Along thermometers, digits must increase from the bulb end to the tip, but not necessarily consecutively." I thought I had the solution to the blue thermometer right after the red one was solved because I had in my head that "increase" meant "consecutive". I probably wouldn't have made that mistake if not for other Sudoku variants calling for consecutive numbers in their rules and then the red thermometer reinforcing that false notion by having to be consecutive to fit all of the digits.

[@tobermorywomble23]

Very nice. 29:40 for me. Happy with any time shorter than the video length. And amazing job on the 1500.

[@danielrhymer1762]

32:03 for me. Great idea! Not too difficult to break into but enough logic in the middle to provide a decent test

[@buzzly108]

1:47 Fibonacci poem (yep) 3:34 Rules 4:55 Let's get cracking!

[@yichen6313]

Cool puzzle. This is certainly an idea that I feel has potential to be further developed

[@craftyraf]

Loved the puzzle!! I can't believe I solved it (my time: 54:37). Binge watching this channel is starting to pay off!

[@aaronfuzion]

great puzzle! love the progression

[@LednacekZ]

I couldnt believe that this had a unique solution, or any solution to be honest. Managed in 31:31.

[@WhoStoleMyAlias]

26:30 You could have placed the 7 on the green thermo right from the start because of where 1 and 2 had to go on row 6

[@matthew456turner128]

Please make a t shirt with the CTC logo and a snake. Under the snake it should say " Don't let your snake touch itself orthogonally." I would pay a small fortune for it!!! You guys make my life enjoyable!!! Be proud of what you have created with the channel!!!

[@Crrool]

46:05 for my final time. Had to peak once when I got stuck (the pink thermometer). Very happy I managed to solve it, usually the puzzles in these 40 minute video's are still too challenging

[@muhsincanorhan]

I really liked this puzzle and managed to solve this one. Thank you for the video.

[@martindedek772]

This was really great, I enjoyed solving it!!

[@curtissumner8578]

58:22! Very cool concept, love the design

[@berrybeecakes2102]

Over 3 years of puzzles wow! Amazing fun

[@matthewender3473]

That was a fun puzzle, and I'm proud to have gotten it in just a little over the video's time, at 35:18! The thermo-setting part wasn't too brutal, but I suppose that's necessary if you don't have givens... :)

[@mitosfive]

Loved it! We need more like this one ( :

[@markboots_]

Really interesting clever idea, but not to difficult. Think it opens a window to some more advanced versions

[@levikatriel]

At 35:05, the yellow thermo never would need to squiggle up as going up would contain going directly

[@forgottenfamily]

I can't tell you how jealous I am at how quickly you eliminated 7 from r4c4. And figured out where the orange pathed. And how to resolve the green. My wife and I figured it all out, but we were staring for a good 15-30 minutes. Fun puzzle.

[@BozoTheBear]

Excellent puzzle!

[@thithildeprouv8310]

This one took me 49:23 and I loved every step of it! And great use of the new pen tool function

[@davidh.4944]

This was an enjoyable challenge. I figured it out mostly with the same logic as Simon, but at a _much_ slower pace (naturally). My final time was 1h50m.

[@colleenscottcarmello5103]

Any time it takes Simon more that 30 mins to solve a puzzle, I feel so much better about my efforts lol. . Great puzzle!

[@BryanLeeWilliams]

What a brilliant puzzle!

[@MattGriffiths81]

What a fun puzzle. I'm amazed it came down to a unique solution.

[@brendonmurley8276]

Hooray! Another one I completed without any clues from Simon - only my fourth!

[@mythmayhemgaming6541]

When he got the 9 in the middle cell, and missed the naked single 9 in the cell with the blue thermometer for so long, it drove me crazy xD amazing sudoku though ^_^

[@FirstLast-gw5mg]

29:04 Actually the logic *does* hold that the 8 must be on the end of the thermo. Either the thermo goes through both cells and the 8 definitely has to be at the end, or it goes around the middle cell. But if it goes around, then it must include a 7 in the top row, and if it includes a 7 in the top row then it needs a higher digit to finish the thermo (and 9 is already used up in the box). So either way, the 8 has to go on the end of the thermo.

[@puppies3742]

I get so engaged in these videos because I feel like they explain their moves well enough that I can follow. In a weird way, these really help calm my ADHD :)

[@bobblebardsley]

Q: Why was the thermo missing its tip? *A: Because seven ate nine.*

[@waynemv]

But according to NASA, 9 8 7....

[@ewoudjan]

nice puzzle , nice logic

[@sammartano22]

I love it when Simon's mind is blown by the setting.

[@sammartano22]

23:10

[@jjesper5438]

Actually way easy er than I thought. It still took me a while to figure out some steps in the puzzle but I completed it aventualy great puzzle if only I wasn't bad at finding the next step in the puzzle

[@RichSmith77]

A very interesting idea for a puzzle, and we'll executed. Managed to solve in around an hour.

[@TurquoizeGoldscraper]

48:11, I got off to a fast start but then had to work may way through the middle. Great puzzle.

[@awilliams1701]

Very nice puzzle!

[@geksos]

23:30 Kind of lucky I guess, you could've also put a 6 in the square below the 5 and a 7 on the leftside of the 6!!!

[@devondeschamps7524]

Just watching this video tonight and I agree, I looked at it quite a bit to see if I missed something

[@rileyaquilano4378]

The saga of the r5c3 9 was riveting. Bravo

[@y_prime]

36:12 - most of the pieces fell into place fairly nicely, but I somehow marked the 7/8 pair in the long thermo on the left and left it alone for like 25 minutes not realizing that they could be disambiguated

[@ojojojojojoje]

Lovely puzzle! Also, the poem made me one happy animal. Thank you ^_^

[@jeythegrey]

Loved this puzzle! very fun to solve :]

[@wanderlustwarrior]

31:11 for my solve time. That was a really fascinating puzzle!

[@nicolaom]

Why 33:10 is a 6 by sudoku??

[@user-user-user-user-user-888]

I want to ask too

[@jameswiebe8956]

That was a beautiful puzzle. I love the way that every step was completely logical - even a plodder like me could make it through to a proper conclusion. What next - Make Your Own Little Killer? Or Make Your Own Sandwich? (Hmm, actually, they have done a lot of those already, if you count the ones where you are given a letter for the outside clues.)

[@srwapo]

a) That was fun! b) can't believe I solved it! It was pretty intimidating.

[@Coyotek4]

28:57 ... and that was after a large turkey leg and tons of fixins. Maybe I think better on a full stomach. Nice puzzle!

[@gijs2177]

This was a beautiful puzzle, had to go back a couple times because I broke something, but managed to solve it in about an hour without looking at the video

[@stevieinselby]

What an incredibly clever puzzle! It proved too much for me though 😭, I got the break-in logic and (with a couple of lucky assumptions that I hadn't realised I was making) got a reasonable way through the puzzle, but when it came to seeing that certain paths would leave no space for unrelated digits elsewhere in the box, I'm still not up to that kind of logic on most days...

[@kvom01]

I'm amazed at how this could be constructed

[@breinnarn]

Cracked this one in 56 minutes. Very proud of self!

[@solaciasolis669]

Very nice puzzle. The thermos form a hippogriff, right?

[@dbass4973]

22:11 for me, i'd say this was pretty easy but fun nevertheless, cool concept

[@Jake_Etc]

I'm sure I'm missing something obvious but how does he get the 8's pencil marked at 14:00? Couldn't you put the green 6 and 7 in box 8 and put an 8 in r6c4?