The Alarm Clock: A Sudoku Wake-Up Call

[@DarklordZagarna]

I have to say, in a world that seems increasingly bleak and hateful toward the sort of kind, inquisitive, brilliant people that Simon and Mark and the community at CtC are, that this channel has been one of the very small number of things that have helped distract me and move me a little bit forward. CtC is an island of sanity in a world gone mad. It may well be the only reason I retain some semblance of mental health. So thank you for what you've done, and created, here. It is a beautiful thing and such things should not be taken for granted.

[@Merdock19]

I feel like I'm relatively new to the broader sudoku community. I've watched these videos on and off, and tackling more and more of the puzzles myself during the last 6-ish months. I was in a class today and during a break I was working on a puzzle. A co-worker asks "oh, is that sudoku you're playing". I tell him that it's sudoku with alternative rules and I start going into more detail. I quickly notice the professor off to the side is nodding his head, seemingly listening in on our conversation. I just look at him and ask "cracking the Cryptic?" "Oh yes!" We didn't talk more on the matter, but it was nice finding a fellow connoisseur of the channel in real life.

[@bradleyshannon7894]

They should put “CtC, an island of sanity in a world gone mad” on a T-shirt.

[@hom-sha-bom]

You should try therapy

[@jorghimvenerablebosstein7568]

@@hom-sha-bomI doubt that’s necessary fam. OP basically says the channel is therapy. 😂 Btw, a lot of people can’t afford the traditional therapy you’re referring to.

[@janeflett4971]

100% agree. This year especially, CtC has been a big part of me getting through

[@michaelkelly8955]

I am absolutely atrocious at sudoku. But I watch Simon every day, I learn nothing from his methodologies, they are all way above my pay grade, but I do love a beautiful bobbin’s.

[@RedCnMn]

Exactly that 😂🤝🏼

[@penningmeestercgkdelft9159]

I admire the way in which Simon deals with time pressure day after day, for many years already... Even when "life gets in the way of solving puzzles"...

[@debrabowen4276]

I love the way Simon and Mark have highly valued (by us) jobs playing with puzzles!

[@markp7262]

53:49 finish. A very nice puzzle with some tricky logic to follow. Excellent!

[@uptoyouization]

Thank you for bringing us some peace during this stressful time

[@Coyotek4]

38:47 ... I initially skipped this one when it dropped, but I'm glad I did actually try it Nice puzzle!

[@davidrattner9]

Love seeing how Zetamath constantly sets such beauties with panache!! Fabulous with how he forced the 19 to the left. More wonderfulness in your solve Simon and your admiration for this great setter!!

[@emilywilliams3237]

So interesting, and I loved your meticulous pathway through the early and middle parts of this solution, Simon. Thank you for this video!

[@kosumi68]

Pretty logic in this one, thank you Simon!

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

25:00 for me. Fantastic puzzle, really liked this one!!

[@piarittersporn]

What a brilliant puzzle.

[@Paolo_De_Leva]

Excellent puzzle and video. 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@ericpraline1302]

Top class stuff from Zetamath as usual. He seems to unerringly hit the sweet spot of supremely elegant logic without horrendous difficulty.

[@chrislewandoski3383]

52:54. This has been a lousy day but this puzzle brought a brief respite. Thanks.

[@davidblake6889]

But Simon, you do 'unnecessarily complicated' so well! In this case, it was an application of the Simon-Zeta function. Great solve, by the way. I did not even try this one I'm afraid, but the one Mark did today was about my speed.

[@chocolateboy300]

I finished in 151 minutes. This has to be one of the strangest puzzles I have ever solved. I was sure that I would be required to use SET Theory, so I actually managed to create a reasonable looking set. I used the edges compared to the four corner boxes. I knew the top two mini boxes added up to 50, but I couldn't see anything with it. I modified the set and moved the bottom edge up one and that looked better, but I still couldn't see anything. Then, I spotted something completely different and asked where 9 goes in row 1. That broke open the puzzle for me as I started to realize how restrictive the side with 9 on it became. This led to me existing in two worlds with a bunch of messy pencil marks. It took me a while, but I finally saw the disambiguation, which I think is my favorite part. If 9 existed on the right side ten line, then a 189 pair forms in r7&8&9c9, forcing the ten line to be 235. This breaks as the circle clue above it had to a 2 or 3 to make the line work. My pencil marking really payed off there. That was such a wild thing to see. From there, the puzzle practically finished itself. I didn't even need SET Theory. That was so wild to me. I did check as I was finishing and my set was correct so that was awesome. This was so strange to solve. I felt like I was going down a secret path that I wasn't suppose to, but it worked and it has to be intended. This has to be one of my favorite puzzles. Great Puzzle!

[@uigrad]

I spent a very long time trying to get Set theory to work. It seemed obvious that it was the way to the break-in, but I finally gave up and just watched to see what Simon did!

[@lucysky437]

57:52 for me. Loved it from the beginning to the end. A wonderful puzzle!

[@NiennaNeryam]

I'd been sitting on a blown up, slightly scewed Phistomefel Ring for this puzzle for weeks (Row 1 and 8 and Column 1 and 9 in one set, boxes 1,3,7 and 9 in the other). There was something with ones and nines but I couldn't wrap my head around it. After Simon started his solve I was convinced I'd just been going on a wild goose chase and it didn't mean anything. But with the deduction around 55 minutes of where the 8 and 9 go in row 8, it finally became useful as that eliminated 1s in one of the sets, thus making it impossible for the circles in r9c3, r9c7 and r7c8 to have 1s in them. Now granted, that deduction can be made without the sets as we see Simon do, but I was still happy to see some use out of it!

[@PathOfShrines]

Really cool! 59:46

[@mrsawiggins]

"This is so Zetamath-y!" Missed ya, man! Glad to see another puzzle of yours!

[@janerobson2297]

I love the fact that Simon proved in 2 different ways that R2C7 was 2 3 or 9 and didn't notice. I think that it's Simon's allergy to pencil marking. But I shouldn't mock. I pencil mark liberally but not always accurately. If I followed Simon's lead I wouldn't make as many mistakes.

[@erichvereen1988]

Thank you for the birthday wishes, Simon. I always remember about Sousa when my birthday comes up because I grew up on many British shows on our PBS channel, with Monty Python being one I always looked forward to seeing. Thank you again for that and for all the puzzles. Can’t wait to see what things the setters have for you in the future. 😁

[@tedtiger7774]

8:38 I can't believe Simon just rick-rolled us. XD

[@andybatts-vo2gx]

44:39 with a bump from Simon to help me figure out which side was 1/9 vs. 4/6. Once I got that, the rest of the puzzle collapsed. Great puzzle, great solve.

[@nicka3697]

I couldn't have done it without Simon. Once he got called away I finished on my own but Zetamath is a tricky fellow.

[@simplesaluki]

Hello! My husband says he quite enjoys watching you solve your sudoku puzzles. He actually mentioned the other day that you sometimes do Birthday call outs. So, I took this as a hint given his birthday is approaching soon. His birthday is on November the 17th. Ihope this is enough time... I was wondering if you could give him a happy birthday shout out? His name is Christian. I'd love for him to be surprised like this so he knows I listen and that he means a lot to me and to our two children. BTW - I like that you've chosen to have an acoustic guitar as a background element for your videos

[@RichSmith77]

I don't know for sure, but often the birthday requests they read out are ones they've received by email. There's an email address for contacting them in every video description, if you scroll down quite far.

[@simplesaluki]

Thankyou so much! I'll try to e-mail😅

[@Anne_Mahoney]

You'll see Simon pull out that guitar and play it in video introductions from time to time, if you stick around (and please do)!

[@codahighland]

Holy heavens, four and a half hours... but I DID it!

[@codahighland]

Watching Simon's solve, I see that I got all of the deductions, but it just took me way too long to get all of the information to stay in my head at the same time. ADHD is annoying. ^^()

[@conorslater8295]

The irony of starting an alarm clock puzzle behind schedule, excellent! Was that intentional?

[@inspiringsand123]

Rules: 05:39 Let's Get Cracking: 08:46 Simon's time: 57m45s Puzzle Solved: 1:06:31 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! Three In the Corner: 4x (40:30, 40:59, 56:47, 59:37) The Secret: 4x (09:35, 09:37, 10:43, 16:34) Bobbins: 1x (28:48) Phistomefel: 1x (02:22) You Rotten Thing: 1x (50:31) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Beautiful: 11x (20:11, 20:52, 21:55, 21:55, 34:58, 35:02, 37:25, 1:00:46, 1:03:03, 1:03:05, 1:05:51) Hang On: 10x (27:48, 27:53, 27:58, 28:07, 28:07, 28:07, 33:06, 33:06, 33:06, 52:49) By Sudoku: 9x (17:15, 21:42, 25:51, 28:31, 31:25, 34:19, 46:55, 50:06, 1:04:09) Ah: 9x (43:10, 45:05, 55:28, 58:01, 1:00:29, 1:00:29, 1:01:59, 1:02:46, 1:05:34) Symmetry: 9x (14:14, 14:14, 14:20, 14:20, 14:36, 14:39, 14:46, 15:04, 18:16) In Fact: 8x (10:41, 18:54, 20:47, 22:17, 27:47, 32:29, 57:12, 58:18) Sorry: 7x (29:50, 30:43, 35:54, 49:31, 50:33, 50:57, 1:02:57) Obviously: 5x (08:20, 10:05, 18:09, 33:32, 40:52) Good Grief: 4x (19:48, 1:03:44, 1:03:44, 1:05:42) Clever: 4x (42:23, 51:06, 1:04:18, 1:05:42) Lovely: 4x (59:52, 59:52, 1:03:11, 1:04:18) Fabulous: 3x (02:43, 03:18, 03:18) Cake!: 3x (04:04, 04:30, 05:26) Weird: 3x (33:55, 34:55, 41:22) Goodness: 2x (50:33, 1:06:34) Nonsense: 2x (21:58, 22:02) In the Spotlight: 2x (56:50, 59:40) Brilliant: 2x (05:24, 20:52) Elegant: 2x (51:22, 56:13) Gorgeous: 2x (35:24, 1:03:44) What Does This Mean?: 2x (24:28, 42:26) That's Huge: 2x (56:28, 56:30) Bother: 1x (31:59) Naughty: 1x (01:25) Horrible Feeling: 1x (16:14) Bonkers: 1x (36:45) I've Got It!: 1x (1:06:31) Propitious: 1x (09:17) Whoopsie: 1x (1:05:36) We Can Do Better Than That: 1x (31:36) Marries Up: 1x (14:32) Internal Logic: 1x (14:51) Phone is Buzzing: 1x (51:09) Wow: 1x (33:55) Nature: 1x (1:00:58) Pencil Mark/mark: 1x (39:08) Serendipitous: 1x (19:58) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Ten (44 mentions) One (118 mentions) Black (5 mentions) Antithesis Battles: High (7) - Low (2) Even (4) - Odd (0) Higher (3) - Lower (2) Black (5) - White (0) Row (9) - Column (7) FAQ: Q1: You missed something! A1: That could very well be the case! Human speech can be hard to understand for computers like me! Point out the ones that I missed and maybe I'll learn! Q2: Can you do this for another channel? A2: I've been thinking about that and wrote some code to make that possible. Let me know which channel you think would be a good fit!

[@compiling]

I noticed there was a neat Phistomefel type construction in this puzzle, where the circles and between lines go in opposite sets (rows 1 and 8, columns 1 and 9). I don't think it ended up helping all that much, but I thought it was an interesting constraint that most of the circles had to go on different between lines, with the exceptions of the corners of the 10 lines and the 89 pair in row 8.

[@eddieharwood7788]

I struggled through that by trying the 19 on the left, knowing that it could be the right, so I ignored all the assymetrical clues. This got me the top line possbilities which I then worked through. Not nearly as elegant as Simon, but I loved it.

[@bait6652]

That was one heck of a fun solve... Accidentally saw Simon's 19 opening but after that it was still challenging. DD B3/C9 was very fun... And continued 2 B89 and the renbans

[@howardtidwell8536]

Nice

[@grahamania]

01:08:52 for me. Looking forward to watching Simon's solve to see how I could have been a bit quicker. Great puzzle! Kind comment.

[@SarahLivne]

How would it be quicker if his time was 99min? (Haven't gone finecombing the video to see where the edit was, but must have been somewhere...). Great puzzle indeed!

[@hom-sha-bom]

Chocolate chipless cookie sounds amazing. Idk why everyone ruins perfectly good cookies with chocolate chips

[@Anne_Mahoney]

I took that to mean "a chocolate cookie without chips," rather than "a cookie without chocolate chips" which is a broader category. And if it is a nice smooth chewy chocolate cookie, perhaps with crunchier edges, boasting deep rich chocolate flavor all the way through rather than merely in the stray pockets of melted chips, then it seems a very good cookie indeed. 😺

[@ThePolymathlete]

73 minutes...tough one today

[@denisdodelin-m1e]

Simon: this break, but it is not satisfactory, let's find a more elegant cracking. Love that channel ^⁠_⁠^

[@penningmeestercgkdelft9159]

First comment :-) Very nice to see a zetamath puzzle once more, that has been a while ago indeed! And by the way, are Sandra&Nala still active making puzzles?

[@gina139able]

Yes, I miss Sandra and Nala too.

[@AnyaJoPilling]

Oh I’ve been dying to ask this question for so long. I miss Sandra and Nala so very much!

[@RichSmith77]

I reached the point Simon got to at around 44:50 ok, but then couldn't see my way forward without bifurcating. I tried 4 in the top right and at the end of a long, long chain of deductions, it eventually broke. I see from Simon's solve, I should have been eliminating options from the circle in r7c8, and using row 8. Much more elegant.

[@AditaBattleForge]

@27:40 much simpler: the 8 in box 2 would by Sudoku have to go on the between line, which breaks.

[@TheMNbassHunter]

I thought the exact same thing.

[@AditaBattleForge]

@@TheMNbassHunter funny thing, after i posted this, and continued the video, it was the first thing Simon said 😂

[@TheMNbassHunter]

@AditaBattleForge Haha! Yeah, I noticed that as well. Funny. Can't blame us, though. It would be a Simon thing to do to find some overly complicated, obscure logic that none of us could ever find, while at the same time, ignoring something very obvious. 😄

[@5t757]

48:39 for me today; tough as nails this puzzle.

[@constanza1648]

55:24 After a while trying my best on the puzzle, I need a little help. And this deduction (not quite extraordinary at first) do the trick! It helped me to arrange all my convoluted deductions and crumbles the puzzle.

[@titusadduxas]

1:43:03 - Very frustrating - I got the break in reasonable quickly but just couldn’t resolve box 3. I ended up bifurcating and once of got the pair sorted out the rest flowed really quickly. I’ll have to watch Simon and see what I missed.

[@57thorns]

29:11 Pickinc up that the circle has to be one of 12359 from the previous arguments about the circles (ie r2c7 has to be in r1c123) might have been a nice step? (and by this point it can't be 1) I suspect it will be used a lot on this puzzle even after the initial breakin.

[@srwapo]

67:49, I was about to give up when I got it to flow. I did deduce that I needed a 1,9 pair in row 1 on one of the gray lines and I just bifurcated to see what that showed me, which made me realize (way too late) where the digits in the circles of the lines in row 1 and columns 1 and 9 had to be and how restrictive they are.

[@Close500]

23:56 for me but I just realized that I got lucky at 30:00 mark of the video. I assumed that r2c3 has to be in r1c78 and cannot be in r1c9 as i didn't consider that it can go down. This assumption forced 8 in r2c8 and the puzzle "solved itself" from that moment

[@smylesg]

0:01 Anyone else expecting Incense and Peppermints for the intro?

[@RoderickEtheria]

34:11, Or you could ask where the 7 and 8 go in r1 if r2c3 is 7.

[@kensweezo2813]

In fact this puzzle does have a 9 in the corner...

[@TurquoizeGoldscraper]

77:07 for me.

[@David_K_Booth]

My time was within a couple of minutes of yours. In places I found it a bit of a slog, which makes me think I wasn't really appreciating the quality of Zetamath's setting.

[@Mephistahpheles]

Thanks for explaining what "between" means. As for "propitious"? Pause....google.... I don't understand why trivial things are explained with obscure terminology.

[@jaaptaal]

Kind

[@conorslater8295]

Very clever

[@hom-sha-bom]

I wish the rules would just say the thick grey lines are 10 lines, the purple lines are renban lines, the thin grey lines are between lines. And the software could give an explanation if you don't know what those rules mean when you mouse over them

[@A_CC_K]

Oooh a Zetamath puzzle.

[@DoubleJumper]

25:44 Why does the circle have to be a 2 3 5 on the right? I'm guessing Simon was too quick to copy the logic from the start, because the 2-digit segment doesn't have to be a 1 9, so the circle on the top can safely be a 1 and the bottom one an 8. Or am I missing something there? Edit: well nvm, then the rightmost column couldn't have an 8

[@RichSmith77]

He's trying to rule out 235 being the three cells 10 sum at the top of column 9. IF that's 235, then the circle in r7c8 has to be 2, 3 or 5 by sudoku, since the digit in the circle has to appear in c7 in box 6 and c9 in box 1.

[@DoubleJumper]

@@RichSmith77 Right, that's a lot more straight forward than i was thinking. I don't always find it intuitive to switch my thinking from "how this set of cells influences this target" to the reverse. Thanks.

[@Prf_X]

Speed solvers don't allow puzzles move from short term memory to long term memory

[@leefisher6366]

20:22: A compiler in the near future... The ten lines don't add up to ten.

[@LednacekZ]

31:59 for me. i feel like i got lucky

[@angeleia]

PLEASE keep quoting Rick Astley after you’ve read the rules - although couldn’t it be another song like “3 in the corner” ❤

[@Pritchie45]

73 minutes

[@binaryblade2]

42 minutes into a 1 hour solve.... still no digits.

[@williammorris7279]

I am sad that Zetamath is not doing his usual live stream reaction to this solve. I am given to understand that you do not advise constructors in advance. Is there a reason for that? I guess sometimes you might fail to solve a puzzle, but that is probably extremely rare, and does not seem a problem.

[@haxingsheep]

I tried turning my life around but my parents stopped me from doing that and restricted me from using the internet or working because I did something their small brains couldn’t understand.

[@emisformaker]

Simon, and I say this with all the love in my heart, click tick. Please.

[@davidtyrrell1909]

This puzzle wasnt fun imo

[@alexandrostheodorosnteris3917]

First comment if a sudoku maker makes any sudoku puzzle with subject about elections of USA and Donald Trump's election it would be interesting to see solving it All the best ❤❤❤🇬🇷🇬🇧🇬🇷🇬🇧