We apply our new hitting set enumeration algorithm to solve the sudoku minimum number of clues problem, which is the following question: What is the smallest number of clues (givens) that a sudoku puzzle may have? It was conjectured that the answer is 17. We have performed an exhaustive search for a 16-clue sudoku puzzle, and we did not find one, thereby proving that the answer is indeed 17. Th...

We consider the problem of constructing explicit Hitting sets for Combinatorial Shapes, a class of statistical tests first studied by Gopalan, Meka, Reingold, and Zuckerman (STOC 2011). These generalize many well-studied classes of tests, including symmetric functions and combinatorial rectangles. Generalizing results of Linial, Luby, Saks, and Zuckerman (Combinatorica 1997) and Rabani and Shpi...

We apply our new hitting set enumeration algorithm to solve the sudoku minimum number of clues problem, which is the following question: What is the smallest number of clues (givens) that a sudoku puzzle may have? It was conjectured that the answer is 17. We have performed an exhaustive search for a 16-clue sudoku puzzle, and we did not find one, thereby proving that the answer is indeed 17. Th...