The Puzzle Hidden In The Instagram Logo

** TODAY'S PUZZLE **
An absolutely amazing original sudoku today from Christounet - who wowed us a few weeks ago with a Back To The Future themed puzzle. This one looks a bit like the Instagram logo! It looks like there's a lot of thermometers to be used but how does one actually use them?!
Play the puzzle at the link below:
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Rules:
Normal sudoku deconstruction rules apply. ie Fill the grid with nine non-overlapping 3x3 square regions, such that each region contains the digits 1-9 once each and no digit repeats in any row or column. Cells outside regions do not contain digits. Along thermometers, digits increase from the bulb end.
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[@jacobchristophe1453]

Hello, thank you for featuring one of my puzzles again ! I'm really glad you picked one of my deconstruction puzzles, because I really have a lot of fun making them. I started this little serie with dots, then tried to find other "single constraints" that would mix well with Jay Dyer's 11x11 deconstruction grid. I really love to play with the box placement logic, and make use of some of the "hidden" properties of that grid that you explained in the video. And guess what, there's some funny irony in the releasing of this video, because my own brain is totally "overheating" right now, not because of puzzle solving/setting, but because I am stuck in bed since yesterday with a strong Covid ! So when I got the news of that feature, it took me a moment to realize it was an actual fact, and not a mirage created by my frying neurons... Thanks again and well done.for the solve, that was really a pleasure to watch, and a little ray of sunshine in a rather foggy day for me !

[@mishkac927]

Your puzzle was delightful and I hope that you recover quickly.

[@tabularasa0606]

Hope you feel better soon. Lovely puzzle.

[@longwaytotipperary]

Hope you are recovering quickly! Love your puzzle and Simon’s solve!

[@pouletbelette]

On te souhaite un prompt rétablissement et du courage ! Deuxième puzzle sur la chaîne et deuxième chef d'oeuvre ! Félicitations. On a hâte de voir le suivant.

[@Anne_Mahoney]

I loved the 21-cell thermo at the center of the grid! Feel better soon!

[@justincrane8825]

Simon, you made my day when you remembered to outline the central box.

[@andystore123]

Thank you for posting every day❤

[@nickroethel3326]

The first time EVER I have solved the puzzle faster than one of the cracking the cryptic folks!!!🎉🎉 I think I got really lucky noticing the thermos were somewhat forced. I just happened to check the right things first try to make the logic work. I'm REALLY proud of this. I only beat Simon by a couple minutes. But a couple minutes is enough for me to call that a WIN. Marking that on the calendar. It may never happen again.

[@no-feetmcgee5577]

I've never before seen a deconstruction puzzle where the solution could easily be condensed into a normal sudoku, but the fact that it was a deconstruction was vital to the puzzle's logic. Bravo!!

[@jacobchristophe1453]

Exactly, I thought about that when I finished setting the puzzle. If you remove the empty thermo cells and make a regular thermo sudoku with the remaining parts, it becomes a very trivial 0.5/5 sudoku !

[@IBAndreas]

Except you couldn't actually make the thermo in the middle box. I suppose the entirety of the middle box could be given.

[@jacobchristophe1453]

@@IBAndreas You’re right, only one tiny bit of the thermo would be needed.

[@saiyanprince989]

Box 8 could be determined by asking where 1 goes in row 10, which would be the bulb at R10C7 via Simon's nemesis - Normal Sudoku.

[@RichSmith77]

I'd say it's a combination of normal sudoku + thermo sudoku. Without the thermos, 1 could go in r10c6, no?

[@willfancher9775]

Also, at 31:00, it's much more useful to see it in terms of the 234 triple that's known in c3, because you can reuse that logic three more times in the grid without having to reanalyze entire boxes. Since there's a 234 triple in c3 that must be in that region, there can't be a 2, 3, or 4 in r4c1. The exact same sort of thing applies in r1c4, r8c10, and r10c8.

[@monkeyunit4533]

I was thinking the same thing when he was looking at the thermo in box 9. Seemed obvious there was no way to use the outside thermo digit as it would force box 8 to reach that point and that already had the 2/3/4 triple in it.

[@Norkas_0]

My favourite wy of thinking about the 9 "anchor points" for the boxes you have in the start is to realize, that whereever you put a box in the grid, it will always cover exactly one of these 9 cells. So in order to not have them overlap, they necessarily need to cover different ones of these cells.

[@Alex_Meadows]

That's a very straightforward way of explaining it, thank you!

[@emilywilliams3237]

Excellent explanation!

[@Axxon2000]

Yes, and can’t you at 08:46 write a 1 into the center of the grid? Since every row and column with 3 anchor points will have a complete set of digits, there is nowhere else for the 1 to go in the center column (and column 9).

[@Norkas_0]

@@Axxon2000 I don't think that's possible unless I am missing something. r1c6 could for example be a 1 if r2c7 would be empty in the final grid. With this deconstruction ruleset it is possible to have a 1 on a thermo, but not in a bulb.

[@rhsspringsports]

@@Norkas_0 Ahh, yes you are correct, in looking again, there are at least 3 places in each of those columns where there could be a 1 based on different box alignments

[@S_Black]

The 1 in Box 3 always had to go there because because it's the only place for 1 in its column. The same logic as with the 1 earlier in Box 7. It just wasn't applied.

[@asadickens9353]

I watched the whole puzzle and primed the comments about to say, "You didn't surround the center green box in red :c" but I am glad I waited til the end, to see the world in perfect harmony •~•

[@Paolo_De_Leva]

_"I am sure there is a cleverer way of doing what I did with the middle box"_ Yes, you can complete the other *8* boxes before studying the *middle box,* and that allows you to pencilmark *single candidates* for each cell surrounding the central digit *1,* which makes it easier to test the possible configurations of the *middle box.*

[@RichSmith77]

Yes. I was hoping he'd finish the positioning of the outer boxes first. It felt like the natural order for the solve. (You just need to think how the 167 can be positioned in row 10.)

[@longwaytotipperary]

Congratulations Blair and Amanda!! Glad you are having good weather in the UK (it’s raining cats and dogs in my corner of the world).

[@davidrattner9]

Hopefully the rain clears away for you and able to enjoy beautiful Vitamin D sunshine, where it is bountiful in my neck of the woods. Have a wonderful time Amanda and Blair!

[@longwaytotipperary]

@@davidrattner9 the weather report looks promising tomorrow - I’m glad you’re having lots of sunshine 🌞!

[@shadeblackwolf1508]

One thing i picked up early, which is how i got my first ever solve that's faster than the video was figuring out the center box had to pick up at least 8 tiles of the center thermo. That meant that all the boxes on the cardinals couldn't come in at all, for that would need at least 2 available tiles on the thermo. It significantly simplifies the solve to know that early on.

[@Coyotek4]

23:34 ... after struggling mightily on the last two 'Simon' sudokus, I found this one surprisingly easy; I'm grateful for that. Nice puzzle. (Also ... . ... I have a wicked urge to play Tic-Tac-Toe now.)

[@emilywilliams3237]

I’m glad you explained the reasoning behind those particular nine cells definitely being in the completed puzzle. I feel that I get that, and could use it myself if I ever were to decide to try one of these chaos puzzles. Fun video - thanks, Simon!

[@davidrattner9]

Simon constantly gives logical reasoning and explanation. 😃

[@longwaytotipperary]

@@davidrattner9 & Emily Williams : that’s one of the reasons (plus his entertaining personality) I started watching and continue to watch!

[@Alex_Meadows]

There's a great comment here from Norkas, who observed that they must be in the completed puzzle because it's impossible to draw a 3x3 box that doesn't cover exactly one of them!

[@longwaytotipperary]

@@Alex_Meadows Norkas is right - I just tried it!

[@emilywilliams3237]

@@Alex_Meadows Yes, it is a great explanation!

[@RoselynTate]

"Mark would've done this at the start of the puzzle -- well no, Mark couldn't have done it, because he wouldn't have known where the boxes were, so..." and then Simon just casually moving on in his solve made me cackle 😂

[@clarityc481]

A really smooth 37:12 for me -- I really enjoyed this puzzle! I'm so glad I decided to try it, too, since I'm often wary of puzzles where the video's this long. I quite like thermos, and I often enjoy deconstructed puzzles even when they're a bit harder for me. Anyway, Simon on an off day is still better than me any day of the week, but I hope he won't begrudge me a bit of pride over this small victory :)

[@clara931]

After reading your comment I decided to give it a go myself. Quite happy I did. It was a lot clearer than many other deconstruction puzzles!

[@raysouth1952]

Another excellent puzzle brilliantly solved. Thank goodness Simon put the red around that last box. I was getting more tense by the moment. Don’t know why that should bother me so, but it does.

[@inspiringsand123]

Rules: 06:30 Let's Get Cracking: 07:55 Simon's time: 52m35s Puzzle Solved: 1:00:30 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! The Secret: 5x (08:08, 08:14, 08:21, 08:25, 08:40) Bobbins: 3x (38:43, 39:03, 46:31) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Ah: 19x (18:32, 18:41, 24:03, 25:54, 27:36, 27:43, 33:06, 33:22, 38:26, 42:47, 43:53, 46:09, 46:31, 47:31, 48:44, 50:41, 53:28, 54:23, 54:36) Hang On: 8x (13:49, 17:12, 23:59, 57:46, 57:51, 58:40, 58:49, 59:54) Brilliant: 6x (02:38, 03:35, 33:26, 33:28, 1:00:37, 1:02:08) Clever: 5x (27:51, 29:44, 30:30, 48:12, 1:01:00) Beautiful: 5x (15:01, 19:22, 36:20, 47:36, 1:02:08) The Answer is: 3x (11:17, 38:09, 43:12) Pencil Mark/mark: 3x (39:08, 41:07, 48:24) I Have no Clue: 2x (16:12, 33:38) By Sudoku: 2x (45:01, 50:10) Shouting: 2x (03:15, 03:58) In Fact: 2x (24:57, 1:00:57) Have a Think: 2x (40:09, 53:46) Goodness: 1x (33:14) Sorry: 1x (30:39) Out of Nowhere: 1x (26:17) Nonsense: 1x (40:44) Bingo: 1x (57:14) Lovely: 1x (18:53) Gorgeous: 1x (45:43) Take a Bow: 1x (1:02:05) Bonkers: 1x (01:08) Approachable: 1x (01:04) Alacrity: 1x (1:01:16) Think Harder: 1x (40:49) Obviously: 1x (12:14) Phone is Buzzing: 1x (40:38) Fabulous: 1x (02:52) That is Sick: 1x (18:41) Symmetry: 1x (12:12) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Eleven (9 mentions) Two (94 mentions) Green (20 mentions) Antithesis Battles: High (2) - Low (1) Even (5) - Odd (0) Higher (8) - Lower (1) Lowest (2) - Highest (1) Outside (2) - Inside (0) Black (2) - White (0) Column (15) - Row (13) 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!

[@flsal27]

Rules @ 4:50

[@andrewnanninga1966]

@@flsal27 thank you!

[@highpath4776]

Where have you been?

[@mayhem661616]

No mention of maverick?!?

[@darthrainbows]

The break in took a bit of thinking (and I concede, seeing enough of the video to get Simon's "secrets" of deconstructed sudoku; I think I've only done one of these before), but once you get in, the logic flows very smoothly. I liked this a lot. Quite satisfying to solve.

[@LavenderGooms]

Ah! I just did this one a few days ago. It was a lot of fun. I loved how silly the end result was, and getting there was a treat. Good puzzle.

[@Swisswavey]

Exactly half an hour for me. I really enjoyed that. Thanks for sharing it

[@SheilaMertens]

I find this rating of '2 out of 5 stars for difficulty' incredibly misleading. It may be that easy for experienced solvers that know the intricacies of solving deconstruction puzzles well, yet for someone who is new to this type of puzzle and attempts to solve it after watching the explanation (up to the 'let's get cracking' moment), it is not easy at all. Especially if you're unaware of the extra 'column rule' Simon explains around the 25 minute mark.

[@Draddar]

2/5 is anything these days 😉 except the most difficult puzzles

[@erikkubonhalvorsen4347]

In box 1 you can easily spot that the the digit in R1C1 cannot be put in the thermo on the outsides, and thus the two points outside of bax 1 is not part of the thermo, and this gives you much from the get go.

[@KSweatshack]

I`m always pleased when you give the difficulty rating on your solves... it encourages me to try out the not overly difficult ones... 2 stars was worth giving it a shot... (poked my head back in the video to make sure I wasn`t wasting my time after I got the four corner boxes)

[@ufdigga2311]

That was so fun! Well done Christounet!

[@d4r4butler74]

I enjoyed you trying out all the different variations on the Middle (Box 5) Tile. Sure there is probably a more Logical (and easier) way to do it, but your surprise each time it didn't work was great!

[@stephenbeck7222]

It was great that it literally took him until the last possibility to find it.

[@johnh2052]

At 25:00, Simon notes that certain rows and columns will always have full sets of the 9 digits in these types of puzzles. He leaves out the row and column passing through the central cell, though, which should have been included for completeness.

[@matthewread9001]

45:00 any time a pair like those 23 pairs are orthogonally next to each other then that’s the “end” of a line. If they are offers then that is a turn in the line. You can trace the 23 pair from box 7->9->3 and then box 3 points at box 1 because of the offset and there is the 2 in r3c1

[@MarushiaDark316]

That final distribution of boxes is such a troll, lol. :U

[@57thorns]

Did this in 33 minutes, I either misunderstood something or found a really good point somewhere. My start was placing the nine cells that had to be in a 3x3 region (all the cells where row/column 3,5,7 cross). This sorted out the long thermos in those rows and columns, allowing me to place the corner 3x3 sub grids. After this is was not that hard, but it took me a while. Simons explaining everything means he reached this point 25 minutes (and a bit) into the video.

[@57thorns]

At 30 minutes Simon ask about "something obvious" when the top left box is almost completely filled with a thermo, and is the only one he has not marked candidates in. 🙂

[@titusadduxas]

52:25 Yay - I beat Simon’s time albeit by only 10 seconds. Normally I’m at least twice as long so I’m taking that. What a lovely puzzle though. We’ll done Christounet.

[@johnh2052]

At 52:00, Simon's reticence about pencil-marking slowed him down. If he'd marked the 4 available cells in box 8, all the outer boxes would have resolved. (Three of those cells are on thermos, so they would have had restrictions and then matched against box 2 above, resolved.) Then, the remaining center box would have been easier to do. I guess it only cost him a few minutes, but it still hurt my brain that he went the harder route. So Simon. :)

[@awilliams1701]

The difficulty makes sense to me. It's not that it's hard. It's that it's slow. Time isn't always difficulty.

[@jillyapple1]

35:43 for me, but my solution for solving box 5 was really inelegant. Basically filled in all possible digits for the center section then looked at all possible nine box configurations and ruled 8 of them out. I never saw a deconstructed puzzle before, so I watched until 15:09 when Simon helped me solve the 11-cell thermo clue. At that point, I realized the corner boxes (1, 3, 7, 9) had to only have 1 cell on either of the 2 thermos that make the 7x7 central square, which gave them extreme corner placements. I was able to fill in most of the digits. Then I realized box 5 regardless of placement would have at least 8 cells on the central thermo. If boxes 2, 4, 6 or 8 were positioned on the central thermo, they would have at least 2 cells on that thermo. That would make minimum 10 cells on the thermo, which breaks it. So that limited were boxes 2, 4, 6 and 8 went. Digits in the corner boxes helped fix where boxes 2, 4 and 6 went. I think I accidentally cheated on box 8 though. Seeing the symmetry of the rest, I didn't properly prove that it couldn't move one column left. Oh well.

[@victoriam6569]

Simple and beautiful! Awesome!

[@sherrypie222]

Newbie to variant sudokus. First time I was able to finish a puzzle without hints from simon's video over an hour length. Still took me 131.32, but I'm pretty happy.

[@Cruzz999]

It took me a ridiculous 70 minutes, but it was a lot of fun, and the furthest from a normal sudoku I've ever been able to even approach, let alone solve!

[@ericpraline1302]

An intriguing puzzle which was knocked into shape after those initial satisfying deductions.

[@RockyInSea74]

26:41 for me. Once I noticed the problems with the outlier thermo cells around box 1. I pencil marked the thermo outliers on the other corners. So as I solved the corners it quickly gave the shape of boxes 2,4,6. Box 5,8 were made easier by pencil marking the known rows or columns for the boxes. This also let you quickly eliminate options and set the box position.

[@HunterJE]

18:30 Something that would be worth noting here before moving on is you also now know the exact position of box 1(NW), the horizontal position of box 3(NE), and the vertical position of box 7(SW), since those three boxes cannot take more than one cell each on the long thermo...

[@ClintWebb]

Took me a while to figure out boxes 1,3,7 and 9 had to be in the corner. Was amazed once I finished the solve and started watching the video that you knew that immediately and explained it far better than I figured it out. I actually discovered it because while looking at the long straight thermo determined that boxes 2, 4 always had to cover the line. Wasn't able to spot a way it wouldn't. Then I realised that box 1 would always hit that line also. Then realised that box 3 also had to hit the line and that the corner boxes could only ever hit one cell on the line, so they had to far to the right. Then looked at the other straight line and realised it was the same also, which but all for corner boxes to the extreme corners. I didn't quite notice that specific 9 cells that Simon highlighted, but at least knew where the boxes had to be. Then I started wondering about boxes 2,4,6 and 8. I knew they had to cover those straight lines, but wondered if they could touch the swirl in the middle. I determined fairly quickly that box 5 had to cover at least 8 cells of the swirl... so that left only one available cell that could possibly be on the swirl that wasn't in box 5. Looking at boxes 2,4,6 and 8, there was no way that they could touch the swirl without taking at least 2 digits, which would break that swirl thermo, so determined that all those boxes had to be on the outer edges of the grid, and couldn't touch the swirl in the middle. I spent some time looking at box 5 in the swirl, but couldn't find any way to determine where it had to be, so then started looking at box 1, which seemed to be the most constrained. While looking at that, remembered that 678 had to be in box 2, and covered all the high digits in row 3, so was able to mark in the 1,2,3 and 4, and then did that around the grid. When I watched Simon do his solve, he had gone to that pretty quickly also, so could see he went a bit of a different route. Once I had most of the digits marked out in the corner boxes, I then started realising that it would be really difficult to have any of the edge and corner boxes touching. So spent time time investigating that, and determined that there had to be a gap between each box. Those little bits of the thermos sticking out of the boxes made a big difference. Once I started following that, was able to determine none of them would fit, so was able to determine the location of the 2,4,6 and 8 boxes. By that point, I had pretty much all the corner and edge boxes solved (aside from a 1,2 pair I couldn't figure out, so determined that must be important for locating where box 5 goes. I could see that if the very central digit which had to be in box 5 was limited to 1 or 2, and if it was a 2, then 1 would have to go in a corner of the available space, but not on the thermo line. This didn't seem to constrain much, but decided to follow that more. So I tried out putting 1 in the non-thermal corners, and quickly determined that 3 would have nowhere to go. So now I knew that 1 went in the very central cell. So now just followed the options. The next cell along the thermo only had 2 options, and what were possible. I could see pretty easily that having box 5 in the very centre, would actually fit well, all the digits lined up well, so I then had to disprove any other location. This turned out to be rather easy. If the 2nd cell on the thermo line wasn't in the box, then 2 and 3 had no possible location. I followed the other paths, and ruled each other. This led me to find where box 5 went, and solved the puzzle. Amazing puzzle. Loved it a lot, and still haven't completed watching Simon's solve, so hopefully my solve turned out to be the correct one.

[@ClintWebb]

I've just watched Simon's solve, and we did end up solving it roughly the same but did follow different paths at times. Amazing to watch. I was able to determine box 8 before even touching box 5, which made it a little simpler, but still ended up doing the same thing. Awesome. I actually found some parts easier because I actually did mark in the digits that were possible in cells that I knew had to be in boxes, and that eliminated some digits quite easily. It was also cool to watch simon determine where box 5 goes. Even though we went through pretty much the same path there, he did look at it from a different perspective. He was looking at it from the edges, I was looking at it from the centre. His made more sense, but we actually ended up doing the same thing. Awesome!! Thank you to the designer, and for the entertaining solve.

[@oneeyedman4431]

Yet another amazing concept, a great innovation from setters. Can’t wait to see what comes over the coming months. 😁👍

[@HunterJE]

31:08 Interesting direction for the logic, you could also rule out that cell being in because a 2 would clash with the 234 already accounted for in box 4(E)

[@HunterJE]

(I feel like this version of the logic would make it a lot quicker to notice how many of the other protruding corners around the grid are also ruled out)

[@Totalis1989]

I loved this puzzle but I am rather baffled by my own good fortune. I effectively guessed at a configuration of boxes, just to get a feel for how the rules interacted. I kept expecting the puzzle to break but it didn't... I finished in 13:38 which is possibly my quickest time ever, but I don't think I learned anything. Bravo for making the puzzle, I suppose I will go watch the video on how you are meant to solve it :D Greg

[@gokusleftshoe5948]

I think it’s super neat the different paths that can be taken to solve this, as I used a totally different way to solve the puzzle

[@Entapris]

21:32 I saw early on that there needed to be at least 4 non-region cells along the 13 cell line which then heavily restricted the position of the regions. This lead to the same restriction for the other 11 cell line. Once the positions of the outside regions were known it came together very quickly.

[@yichen6313]

What makes the break-in for me is that there can be only two missing in row 3/9 and similarly for column 3/9. And the longest thermo is 13 cells long so we need 2x2 cells missing, and that the corners are 1/5/9. Then the slightly shorter one is 11 cells long but goes from 2-8 so it needs 2x2 missing cells also. Then it unfolds itself quite smoothly. Fun puzzle!

[@AdamRidley11]

I really thought you were going to leave us hanging on outlining box 5 in red. That would have been a terrible cliffhanger!

[@nonagrey3422]

What a gorgeous puzzle! Absolutely brilliant!

[@Rubrickety]

While solving this puzzle I felt like I was a naughty scientist, trying to find data to confirm my initial assumption (which of course did turn out to be correct).

[@WhammeWhamme]

So, needed Simon to remind me/tell me about the nine squares that are from different boxes, and then I got to the end except I made an oopsie near the end and wrote a '6' when I meant to put '9' (in box 6) which was just me filling in the final boxes a bit quick... the plus side is this meant I got to take several stabs at solving the central puzzle, so I quite like my final approach, which was to treat the entire 5x5 grid as just one box and fill in what things had to be from columns, then what they couldn't be from rows, which put a single digit in each of the cells and meant I could just eliminate box positions pretty quickly... anyway, cool puzzle, glad I got a round tuit.

[@MrCoxmic]

13:27 here he goes, he is going to pencil mark the thermo; 18:30 boom he sees amazing logic and explains it to us mere mortals

[@markheisler5118]

only thing more difficult than using sudoku in a sudoku puzzle is counting!

[@haidaralhassan4621]

OH MY GOD SIMON JUST SAID HE WATCHED “The Man Who Knew Infinity” it’s my favourite movie I’ve watched it like 5 times 😭😭❤️❤️

[@LednacekZ]

25:00 dead for me. It is not that hard. I always start this type of sudoku by colouring the 5x5 for each possible 3x3 box and that usually reveals some sort of secret. This one was exactly like I predicted.

[@saittou]

solved: my time 35:58 I don't usually attempt puzzles in which the video is longer than an hour but deconstruction ones are usually easier for me and the really long thermo convinced me to try it XD

[@fawful9992]

I got a bit lucky by making the boxes in the correct pattern as a test and noticing some bits of logic with it before actually beginning the solve.

[@Kelters]

Excellent film about the unassuming mathematical genius Ramanujan. Recommend the film as much as I recommend CtC. -- Oh, by the way, great puzzle solve, as always :) Thanks.

[@AWanderingSwordsman]

I had significant help from the video at first and managed to finish in 26 minutes. No idea how long it'd have taken me to come to the opening on my own even though it seems so obvious now.

[@luanvw0512]

the solution being a big hashtag is also pretty

[@lucarr1041]

This was definitely very approachable, despite seeming on the intimidating side at first glance. About halfway through I started to cotton on to what was happening... I'm glad I wasn't disappointed

[@GuillaumeHuetGH]

35:06 : I was wondering from the beginning when you would address the 21 (21!!) digits thermo to realize that boxes 2, 4, 6 and 8 would need to touch the border. Just wanted to point out an error in your logic even though the conclusion is correct : in your example for box 4 you say it would need to activate 3 thermometer digits, it actually could activate just 2 if you move the box as up or down as possible but this would still be one too much because as you said box 5 activates at least 8. Edit : I continued watching and you actually realize the point I was talking about.

[@RoderickEtheria]

I suspected the result upon placing b1379. 5:45 Simon says at this point the boxes won't work, but this isn't true. As long as he places 1 more at the top, there still could be a sudoku grid. Of course, the thermos break this setup. 19:37, I'm amazed how amazing Simon is finding these thermos.

[@trudain]

Erm i did this in 12 minutes. I first looked at the long thermo col3/row 2 and realized it only worked with at least 4 gaps cells. So top 3 and left 3 3x3 have to all be separated. Repeat for other 2 long thermos and you quickly see maximum separation needed for all 3x3s. You also fill in all the numbers for these long thermos. The rest was an approachable sudoku.

[@leickrobinson5186]

Yes, quite approachable! 14:25 for me! :-D (By far my fastest time for any of Simon’s puzzles! Although I imagine it could be *very* hard if you don’t see the break-in!)

[@Yttria]

Surprisingly easy. The only place I kinda got stuck was at the end determining the location of box 5. Ended up just using the brute force method and guessed correctly on the first try. (31:44 overall)

[@MisterM2402]

"2/5 difficulty rating" but I had no idea where to even begin looking with this one.

[@praematura]

26:26 was my time, I was amused by the final layout. 🙂 Really fun puzzle!

[@fufighter100]

I would like to add that the example pattern before finished "could still exist". I'm guessing you thought you couldn't put a 3x3 box below yellow, but you could put one above the blue box. Also, I was wondering for this puzzle, if the bulb of a thermo could exist outside a region and if not, is that one way to look at solving it?

[@LavenderGooms]

In r9c4 there is a bulb outside the boxes! The rule states "strictly increases from the bulb" which just means going from bulb to tip they need to get larger. There's nothing saying the bulb has to have a digit, unlike arrows where the circle is explicitly the sum.

[@RichSmith77]

I assumed he saw his example wouldn't work because it put more than nine 'activated' digits on the long central thermo.

[@fufighter100]

@@LavenderGooms yeah I later realized I was improperly correlating that a thermo part outside a region not containing a digit to it not existing. Then thinking that how would you tell which way the thermo is going in a region. But that's because I was thinking of thermos in a literal sense I guess.

[@ichselbst4798]

For example 38:00 Pencil-Mark would have been faster to solve it, took him 4 minutes to get there. Occured several times. Completed box 8 (and due to it 2 too) before going to middle. saved also lots of time. 29:05 for me

[@TheMaskedDonut]

Normally, it takes me about 2 to 3 times the length of Simon in order to solve one of these puzzles. This one I cracked in just an hour and a half (though I did need some help getting started since this was my first deconstructed sudoku). Great puzzle!

[@przemekmajewski1]

A very fun deconstruction solved in 48 minutes, so in about 0.85 simon. Good result :D

[@mstmar]

i have a more thorough proof of the deconstruction secret. if you highlight rows 3, 6 and 9, you can ask how many of the 3x3's intersect the highlighted rows. it has to be all of them. where would a 3x3 that isnt on one of those 3 rows be? no where. then you can ask how many per row? exactly 3. you cant put more than 3 on each, or you'd need 12 cols which you dont have, and you cant put less than 3 since you need to put 9 3x3s. so each row has 3 3x3s. placing 3 3x3s that intersects a line is a lot easier to convince yourself of the secret than wondering if you missed a case where you can place them in some sort of zigzag that lets you put say the middle square in a way that it doesn't touch the middle cell (r6c6)

[@stephenbeck7222]

Two thumbs up for the Man Who Knew Infinity movie. Every fan of the channel should watch it if they haven’t already.

[@alantaylor846]

Simply wonderful...and brilliant!

[@srwapo]

35:05, WOW, I was surprised to see how to get the upper left cage so quickly. Had to think a bit to go from there, but it wasn't that hard until the central cage. I actually figured out how to make Cage 5 work right away, but without "proving" it, so I did the work to prove that I couldn't move it some more.

[@thezanycat]

23:54, realised the restrictions on the two 'L' lines quickly which let me fly through the break-in

[@dhunton]

My first time solving a puzzle with a video over 1 hour! Took me 88 minutes, but I got there on my own!

[@Deditzy.]

40:44 will be an awkward situation when the sender of the WhatsApp message gets a reply with “sorry was busy solving a puzzle” and then they watch this episode. 😅😅😅😂😂😂

[@joekerr3638]

After the 1s are found for boxes 7 and 9; ask, where does 1 go in box 8?

[@RichSmith77]

r10c6 or r10c7, right? (@44:38)

[@zkhydro4985]

32:55 after this my mind is going to whats the polarity of r4,c4? Is it a in either box 1 or 4? If not it's it in box 5?

[@stephenmccarthy1795]

Make the out of box cells black, or some dark color to make it I impossible to read a number, since there are not any numbers in those cells.

[@stephenmccarthy1795]

I counted 21 cells in the central Thermo, so fully twelve of them cannot be used. I don’t know how he didn’t go there sooner, having started with the observation that there are thermos with more than 9 cells in the puzzle.

[@MrWademcg]

At 29:25 , I’m a bit confused as to how 6 was determined to be in r1c2. To me it just seemed the minimum was 6, but it could have finished the thermometer with a 789 and 6 in the corner?

[@chipsounder4633]

Box 3 in the corner, box 3 in the spotlight 😂😂😂

[@altreusplays]

Simon struggling to convince himself that every cell in a 3x3 region is part of a set of 3 orthogonal connected cells was a bit painful 😅

[@SpiritoGiovane]

A brilliant sudoku!!!

[@thecaneater]

Green and pink (purple to Simon), are very aesthetically displeasing. I don't know why he didn't go with his usual dark grey for out of bounds cells.

[@mikepictor]

about 40 minutes. I admit for the last square in the centre, I just decided to see "would it work if I centred it" and everything fit. I don't know if that constitutes bifurcation, it was just a guess, but it just seemed like it would fit.

[@Zacht1980]

The way you colored the puzzle makes me think a better title for the puzzle is "Spumoni".

[@chrisluke7786]

Poor box 5 it doesn't get a border. Finding the 1 in box 8 after 7 and 9 are filled positions it. Then 7 of the center 9 square only have one possible value. That forces box 5 to the center, because at least 3 of them other then the center have to be included.

[@EelcoWind]

That was surprisingly easy, for me. I filled in the 9 "must be separate boxes" squares, saw the thermo and then almost just filled in the rest. Central square took me a minute, but was easy enough as well. Time was 19:46. Very satisfying to fill in, though.

[@Ardalambdion]

Any link to the puzzle you showed us, but didn't play?

[@Rach881101]

52:12 for me. Brilliant puzzle!

[@Mephistahpheles]

Can only have 2 non-sudoku cells in each row 369 & each column 369 13 cell thermometer 2 gaps on the row 2 gaps on the column Must have all 9 digits Ends must be 1 & 9. Middle must be 5. 11 cell thermometer 2 gaps on row 2 gaps on column Must have all remaining 7 digits (1 & 9 are used) Middle must be 5. Central column must have 9 digits. Thermo bulb has to have the 1. (Realized later that theoretically box 8 thermo bulb doesn't have to be activated, so the "1" could actually go after the bulb.) That took about 5 minutes. Then I got stuck. 😕

[@acantilado]

It’s crazy that Simon didn’t address the super-long thermo until the 33 minute mark. Great feature!

[@willfancher9775]

At 24:30 I can't tell you how much it bothered me that he didn't highlight the central row and column as well.

[@irc_ninja6906]

i did not understand rules how thermos work if just part of it is in same region :( sad

[@haraldlonn898]

excluding the 4 ways before proving the 5th is the only way to be shure. Thanks