Where's Wally?: How to find him in ten seconds

People have been searching for bespectacled character in Where's Wally books since 1987

A computer scientist has created an algorithm which makes it possible to find Wally in seconds (Getty Images)

For children who whiled away their time searching Where’s Wally books, there was almost nothing more elusive than its namesake.

Now, a computer scientist has created an algorithm which makes it possible to find the striped jumper-wearing character in seconds.

To come up with the system, Randal Olson, a doctoral student in computer science at Michigan state University, analysed the 68 locations where Wally appears in illustrator Martin Handford’s original 1987 series of books.

Olson discovered that the character has never appeared on the bottom part of the right-hand page, and rarely makes an appearance in the top left corner or on the edges of the page.

However, Wally most regularly pops up at the bottom of the left page, followed by the upper quarter of the right page is the next best place to look, and then the bottom right half of the right page.

Therefore, if a reader starts in the bottom half of the left page, works their way up to the middle and then down the right-hand side, that's where Wally will most likely be.

A The Times reporter who tested Olsen’s theory on five Where’s Wally puzzles found the character using this meothd in an average of 10.2 seconds.

But despite his efforts, Olsen advises readers on his website to ditch his theory, and try to find Wally the old fashioned way.

“As with so many things in life, the joy of finding Waldo is in the journey, not the destination," he writes.