Lecture for Students: Laura Taalman

by Kay Somers
Moravian College


Do you know how many different ordered 9 x 9 Sudoku boards there are? (Hint: the answer is a 22-digit number!) Laura Taalman answered that question and raised many other Sudoku-related questions in her MathFest 2008 Lecture for Students “Sudoku: Questions, Variations, and Research.” She discussed various ways to bend the rules to create new, similar games, including using different board sizes, using non-square regions, and creating overlapping puzzles. And she gave audience members a “special” Sudoku puzzle to solve for homework!

Laura Taalman is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at James Madison University. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Duke University and is the author of numerous articles and an Integrated Calculus text, and is a co-author of the book Color Sudoku.

The MAA Lecture for Students, organized by the Committee on Undergraduate Student Activities and Chapters (CUSAC), is an expository lecture aimed at undergraduate students. At each of the winter and summer MAA meetings since 1991, there has been a Lecture for Students, a very popular event for students of all levels, as well as faculty and other meeting participants.