Pattern-Based Constraint Satisfaction and Logic Puzzles (Third Edition) - Softcover

Berthier, Denis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1326675893 ISBN 13: 9781326675899

Publisher: Lulu.com, 2021

Synopsis

"Pattern-Based Constraint Satisfaction and Logic Puzzles (Third Edition)" develops a pure logic, pattern-based perspective of solving the finite Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP), with emphasis on finding the "simplest" solution. Different ways of reasoning with the constraints are formalised by various families of "resolution rules", each of them carrying its own notion of simplicity. A large part of the book illustrates the power of the approach by applying it to various popular logic puzzles. It provides a unified view of how to model and solve them, even though they involve very different types of constraints: obvious symmetric ones in Sudoku, non-symmetric but transitive ones in Futoshiki, topological and geometric ones in Map colouring, Numbrix and Hidato, non-binary arithmetic ones in Kakuro and both non-binary and non-local ones in Slitherlink. It also shows that the most familiar techniques for these puzzles can be understood as mere application-specific presentations of the general rules. A free companion software (CSP-Rules-V2.1) implementing all the rules and above-mentioned applications is available on GitHub under the GPL license.

Edition details

• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1326675893
• ISBN 13: 9781326675899
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 608