# History & community

> The record and the people behind it: two decades of Eternity II told as a story, the record boards themselves, the record-holders and theorists, the academic literature, and how to add your own work to the wiki.

- Canonical page (with interactive figures/demos): https://eternity2.dev/research/community/
- Updated: 2026-07-13

---
Eternity II is a story before it is an algorithm. This section keeps the
community's memory: how the record climbed, the boards that carry the line,
the people who found them, the papers written along the way, and how to add
what you know.

<div className="not-prose grid gap-4 md:grid-cols-2">
  - [History: the big steps](/research/history) — The whole story at a glance: a scannable timeline of the turning points, from the mailing list founded in 2000 to the 470 record that still stands.
  - [The hunt, in full](/research/community/hunt) — The long-form account in two parts: the founding era (2000–2009) and the modern record line (2009–2026), with the posts to prove each turn.
  - [Records & solvers](/research/records) — The record timeline and the engines behind it: who reached 470/480, and what those boards reveal about the wall.
  - [The notable boards](/research/community/boards) — The record line told through the boards themselves: Verhaard's 467, the line to 470, the strict five-clue record, each with its non-matching edges marked and openable in the viewer.
  - [Who's who](/research/people) — The people behind two decades of research (founders, record-holders, theorists), with what each contributed and the posts to prove it.
  - [Papers](/research/papers) — The academic literature on Eternity II and edge-matching, ranked by how useful it actually is to a solver-builder.
  - [Contribute](/research/contribute) — How to add to the wiki: the sources it trusts, how findings are credited, and where to send what you know.
</div>

## The community archive

Much of what this wiki draws on lives, in raw form, in the
[groups.io Files area](https://groups.io/g/eternity2/files): about 300 MB
built up over two decades. It is worth knowing what is in there.

<div className="not-prose grid gap-4 md:grid-cols-2">
  - [The paper archive](https://groups.io/g/eternity2/files/00_Eternity2_articles_papers_presentations_books) — Fifteen dated PDFs, 2007 to 2020: the complexity proofs, the SAT/CSP and MILP papers, theses, and a maintained bibliography. The backbone of our [Papers](/research/papers) page.
  - [Puzzle theory & proofs](https://groups.io/g/eternity2/files/Puzzle%20Theory) — Sixteen more: phase-transition bounds, the shared-edge feasibility proof, French seminar notes, and cross-domain work from the SAT and physics literature.
  - [Decades of solvers](https://groups.io/g/eternity2/files) — Dozens of contributors' folders (Brendan, Guenter, Peter McGavin, and many more): backtrackers, SAT and exact-cover encoders, GA and GPU attempts, with source, most from before this wiki existed.
  - [Databases](https://groups.io/g/eternity2/databases) — Brendan Owen's ["Backtracker estimates"](/research/why/complex-theory) tabulation (the tree sizes and solution counts you'll find worked into the theory pages) and the record leaderboards, all queryable.
</div>

Sample puzzles, benchmark sets, and board images are in there too. If you
find something worth a page, [say so](/research/contribute) and it can become
one.

## Pages in this section

- [The hunt, a history (part I: 2000–2009)](https://eternity2.dev/research/community/hunt) — The community's story, from a mailing list founded seven years before the puzzle existed to the $10,000 scrutiny prize won under a borrowed name, with every event sourced to its original message. Part I of a growing chronicle.
- [The hunt, a history, part II: 2009–2026](https://eternity2.dev/research/community/hunt-part-2) — Seventeen years after the prize: the contest dies with its solution locked in a safe, 467 stands for a decade, the archive survives Yahoo's shutdown by days, and then an outsider from Reddit rewrites the record book. Every event sourced to its original message.
- [The notable boards](https://eternity2.dev/research/community/boards) — The famous Eternity II boards, treated as first-class citizens: Verhaard's prize-winning 467, the Blackwood record line to 470, the strict five-clue record to 464, and this project's own boards: who found each one, when, and what makes it structurally interesting. Every bundled board opens in the viewer.