Hong Kong judge credited to have made Sudoku popular around the world. The puzzle was created by Howard Garns, an American architect, and published originally with the name Number Place in Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games (May 1979 issue).
Number Place then crossed the seven seas, as it were, and got published in the Nikoli magazine in Japan. It now received a good bit of success. However, creating the puzzles was a tedious process, and this is where Wayne Gould steps in.
Gould spent six years developing a computer program that would automatically create puzzles of specified difficulty. He then convinced The Times in UK to publish the first Sudoku puzzle. From there, it was picked up by newspapers in the United States and quickly became a worldwide sensation.
