is a Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

 mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 teacher who invented the numerical logic puzzle KenKen

KenKen

KenKen or KenDoku is a style of arithmetic and logic puzzle invented in 2004 by the Japanese math teacher Tetsuya Miyamoto, an innovator who says he practices "the art of teaching without teaching". He intends the puzzles as an instruction-free method of training the brain...

. (It is called Kashikoku-Naru-Puzzle in Japanese, which literally means "a puzzle that makes you smart.")

Miyamoto developed KenKen in 2004 to help his students improve their calculation skills, logical thinking and patience. His puzzle series has sold over a million copies in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. It was introduced to the rest of the world at the 2007 Bologna Book Fair

Bologna Children's Book Fair

The Bologna Children's Book Fair or La fiera del libro per ragazzi is the leading professional fair for children's books in the world.Since 1963, it is held yearly for four days in March or April in Bologna, Italy...

 as KenKen and has been translated into Korean

Korean people

The Korean people are an ethnic group originating in the Korean peninsula and Manchuria. Koreans are one of the most ethnically and linguistically homogeneous groups in the world.-Names:...

, Thai

Thai language

Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...

, German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

, French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 and Czech

Czech people

Czechs, or Czech people are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...

. KenKen made its debut in The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

(London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

) in March 2008, and the New York Times in February 2009. The first U.S. KenKen tournament was held in March 2009 in Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

, with Miyamoto in attendance.

Miyamoto graduated from Waseda University

Waseda University

, abbreviated as , is one of the most prestigious private universities in Japan and Asia. Its main campuses are located in the northern part of Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as Tokyo Senmon Gakko, the institution was renamed "Waseda University" in 1902. It is known for its liberal climate...

 in Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

. He worked as an instructor at a juku

Juku

Gakushū juku are special private schools that offer lessons conducted after regular school hours and on the weekends....

(university preparatory cramming school) in Yokohama

Yokohama

is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...

. In 1993 he founded his own school named Miyamoto Sansuu Kyoushitsu (Miyamoto Math Classroom) and established his unique "non-teaching classroom" methodology. He currently teaches KenKen to children on weekends.

External links

• KenKen Web
• Kenken.com
• Puzzle Guru Will Shortz, Time Magazine
  Time (magazine)
  Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
  
  , March 2, 2009