There are 6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 (6.67×1021) distinct Sudoku solutions. I was never into the game. Then I learned about Phistomefel Ring which comes from Set Equivalence Theory. Do you notice a pattern?
Sudoku puzzles are dealing with sets of numbers with very strict rules. There are 81 squares and each digit from 1-9 gets repeated exactly 9 times. Each row, column and 3X3 square needs to have 1 of each digit.
There needs to be at least 17 clues to make sure that everyone arrive at the same answer. This does not mean every Sudoku can be solved with only 17 clues. What mathematicians have figured out is that there are no Sudoku that can be solved if there were only 16 clues.
For those who are willing to dig deeper, there are even more cheat codes that can make solving Sudoku even faster. The mathematics and geometry of these "cheats" is fascinating; but also a little difficult to grasp for complete a beginner.