All the Right Numbers

Hawera-born Wayne Gould, the New Zealander behind the international Sudoku craze, features in Time magazine’s Time 100 for 2006. The list of “men and women whose power, talent or moral example is transforming our lives, “includes Hillary Rodham Clinton, Elie Wiesel, The MySpace Men, Pope Benedict XVI and Oprah Winfrey. Gould features in the Artists & Entertainers section alongside Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ang Lee and George Clooney. “While Gould didn’t invent sudoku … [he] had the genius to recognize its elemental, addictive appeal. He also had a brilliant if counterintuitive marketing model: give the puzzle away. More than 400 newspapers worldwide run his Pappocom sudoku puzzles free in return for promoting Gould’s computer program and books. The results must be lucrative, as sales of the books alone have passed 4 million.”