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THE AMAZING WORLD OF SUDOKU!!!

Did you know that a complete table of all possible Sudoku solutions, wouldn't fit on all the data storage devices on earth (combined)? [http://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst-reports/diverse-exploding-digital-universe.pdf] It would take approximately, 5.40 * 10^23 bytes of storage, to store the complete table; or about 270 terabytes of storage, for every computer connected to the World-Wide-Web (Internet), (which is about 100 terabytes of storage for every person on earth).

Did you know, that if every computer in the world, combined in the execution of this program (to verify the number of Sudoku solutions), it would take at least 8 years to complete?!! That's every computer in the world, running it for 8 whole years, just for one single project!! WOW!!![doubt they'll let that happen]

Did you know that a computer program, with a relatively fast algorithm, that could verify more than 15,000 solutions/second, [Can you imagine how blazingly fast that is? Verifying 15,000 solutions, every solitary second, now that's pretty dog-gone impressive, with a capital I, if you ask me!!??!!] will still take about 14 billion years, to verify all the possible solutions? Imagine that, verifying more than 15,000 solutions every single second, for almost 14 billion years????[I thought my job was demanding.]

Several attempts have been made to determine the number of actual solutions for Sudoku, and 2 independent studies have determined the number to be 6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960. JFF SOFTWARE has written a program to determine the actual number, and are able to show that the number put forth, by these 2 independent studies, is somewhat close to the actual figure(if not exact).[http://www.afjarvis.staff.shef.ac.uk/sudoku/ed44.html]

The program logic used:

1. The number of possible permutations of the first row(of the puzzle), is determined by the program to be 362,880 (9!, as expected)!
2. The first row is set to 123456789, and the number of possible permutations of the second and third row(combined), with a fixed first row, is determined by the program to be 2,612,736 [which Jarvis agrees with]. Thus, the number of possible permutations of the first three rows combined, is 948,109,639,680.
   • Now, here is where the inter-connectivities, of all the rows, columns, and regions disallow for any type permutational theories to co-exist with the actual solution. The best the permutational theories can do, is allow for the average of as many tests as possible, setting the first three rows to different soluble values.
   • The program ran several tests, with the first three rows set to differing soluble values, and the findings were within 5% of the figure of the two aforementioned studies(a very small sampling).
   • This program, written by JFF SOFTWARE, can determine the actual number of solutions, with certainty; but, unfortunately, if the program were to be initiated today, the only people that would know the actual number of Sudoku solutions, with certainty, would be the inhabitants of a descendant universe.