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Four-Dimensional Rubik's Cube Craziness
roice writes "Rubik's junkies and puzzlers will be interested in this software rendered four-dimensional
analog of Rubik's Cube. With over 1.75E120 possible combinations, it's
a mind bender. Free versions are available for both Windows and Linux, and
they even publish their source code for download. Solving it will get your
name listed in their Hall
Of Fame, and there is also a running competition for the most efficient
solution. To help get you started, you can check out a solution algorithm based
on techniques used to solve the popular three-dimensional version."
Heck with solving it. There are some things that just aren't worth solving. Now where can I find a software rendered four dimensional analog of a hammer and nail?
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
it took me long enough to finish the real thing.
I can't even figure out the regular one. Hell, I am lucky I can tie my shoelaces in the morning!
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Apply a screwdriver to it; reassemble in the proper order.
Um, though that may be a little hard with the program, I'll admit.
Maybe if I apply the screwdriver to the ~~++5#Q%NO CARRIER
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you know how long I've been working on my three dimensional one? over a year. Perhaps I'm stupid, but that thing is impossible to solve. Anyone have any clue how long it would take a computer to solve your standard rubics cube through brute force?
YOU SUCK BALLS!
and there is also a running competition for the most efficient solution.
duh...just peel off the stickers.
Can someone plz send me a link to a trainer for this. Thx. also no-cd version much appericated.
What, you have to step into the future to solve it? :-D
More than mere navel gazing.
Neat game. It's been around a while. I've been able to solve 7 random twists. The first thing you have to do is start with a ordered cube and see what happens when you twist it different ways. Not consistently, though. The trick is to figure out what the last move probably was, reverse it, the one before it, reverse that, and so on. After 3 random twists, you might be able to make a bad guess and recover from it. After 7, one wrong turn is a good reason for starting over. Never was able to solve a regular 3d rubiks cube puzzle though.
Just a word of warning to the foolish and brave. Before you tackle the 4^4 hypercube, make sure you buy an ergonomic mouse and mousepad. My guess is you'll probably develop super-carpal tunnel syndrome before you even you match one side of the damn cube. Also be sure to stockpile a few extra mouses, there's no knowing how many of them you'll be throwing against the wall.
The 1980s certainly seemed the nadir of American animation...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
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I memorized the solutions to the Rubik's Cube so everyone would think I was smart! Haha, fooled them!
Now I just get drunk and masturbate a lot.
Ahhhhhhhh!
:)
It's LEGO, not LEGO's, not Lego's, not lego's, not lEGO's, not leGO's, not legO's, not lego'S, not LeGo's, not lEgO'S.
It's not LEGOS, legos, LEGOS'.. ITS LEGO
"I have one LEGO, I have two LEGO, I have many LEGO. I enjoy playing with LEGO"
1 LEGO = LEGO
2 LEGO = STILL LEGO
No farking S!!
Ok I feel better now.
I don't know. It looks like a more complex 3D version that's just real togh to build with plastic.
Maybe it's because I read some quack's claim that the 4th dimension was time. In which case a 4D rubics cube would solve itself over time or be onsolvable because it rescrambled while you were trying to solve.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
1) Click OPTIONS
2) Click SOLVE
Two clicks... anyone do better?
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
Um, though that may be a little hard with the program, I'll admit.
No it won't, we just have to wait for someone to come up with a software implimented 4 dimensional hammer...there's probably already one written for emacs...
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
That would be like having regular 3D rubik's cube and not be able to turn the white face.
Not quite. It's like having a physical 3D rubik's cube and not being able to see all 6 faces at the same time. You can however turn a physical cube around so you can see the hidden face. It's a similar idea in this one. The way to see the hidden "face" is given in the FAQ:
Q: I can turn a real cube around so that I can see the hidden faces, can
I do something similar to see the invisible eighth "face"?
A: Yes. If you hold down the control key and click either mouse button
on any part of a "face", the puzzle will "rotate" in 4D until that "face"
is in the center. That "rotation" will bring the invisible face into the
same position as the one you clicked on. The "face" on the opposite side
of the puzzle will "rotate" out until it turns inside-out and becomes the
invisible "face". This "turning inside-out" motion is very typical of 4D
"rotations". Notice that control-clicking either mouse button on the
central "face" does nothing because it's already in the center.
The best way to solve a given cube is called "God's algorithm" to us Rubik's geeks (I can average about 50 s. solving a cube, which is ok, but not phenomenal). It's 18 moves. The method behind it is far too complicated for a person to do without a computer to assist, but using a rather simple method, a person can very easily solve a cube in around 65 moves, but slowly. The record-breaking solution times are closer to a hundred moves, but rather than remembering a move-efficient but thought-intensive way to solve it, one remembers many more algos that whose situation can be recognized much more quickly.
And for the previous posts asking how long it takes a computer to do it... it's very, very low. Under a second. Many people can do it, manually (a computer just has to give the moves, it can ignore the time required to actually turn the cube) in under 20 seconds (For the people out there in disbelief, Dan Knights has a video of him actually doing it in 17, it's for real. I won't post the link, because I'm not going to be responsible for slashdotting his site).
There's a huge difference between a computer solving it "brute force", and a person or computer solving it through established algorithms. By brute force, just twirling the cube until the solution popped up, it would take on average however long it takes your computer to process half of the possible combinations. That's quite a long time. However, a computer solving a cube how we would, focusing on time rather than least amount of moves, could easily solve more than one a second.
Information on the "Rubik, The Amazing Cube" television show
Premiered on ABC: September 10, 1983-September 1, 1984.
The series ran for 1 year, and had a total of 12 episodes. It was
originally broadcast as "The Pac-Man/Rubik, The Amazing Cube Hour"
on Saturday mornings in colour with each Rubik segment lasting
22 minutes.
The Plot
--------
Rubik is discovered by a young boy (Carlos) who brings the colourful cube
to life - after he aligns all the cube's sides - an sets out on a magical
adventure tour along with his brother and sister, Renaldo and Lisa.
The series was rebroadcast in the spring of 1985 as a mid-season replacement.
Ruby-Spears Enterprises produced the series.
Voices
------
Rubik: Ron Palillo
Carlos: Michael Saucedo
Renaldo: Michael Saucedo
Lisa: Jennifer Fajardo
Ruby Rodriguez: Michael Bell
Marla Rodriguez: Angela Moya
Episode List
------------
"Rubik, The Amazing Cube," "Rubik And The Lucky Helmet," "Back Packin'
Rubik," "Super Power Lisa," "Rubik And The Mysterious Man," "Rubik And The
Pooch-Nappers," "Rubik And The Buried Treasure," "Rubik And The Science
Fair," "Honolulu Rubik," "Rubik's First Christmas," "Rubik In Wonderland"
and "Saturday Night Rubik."
My problem with this is that it rotates so fast, that I can't figure out what the effect of a rotation is supposed to be. The speed also makes learning by observing it solving itself useless ... just some flashes and 0.25 seconds later it's done. Any way to slow it down?
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
Puzzled by the cube? Try renting two (relatively low-budget, unknown) sci-fi flicks. - Cube: Buncha people, trapped in a buncha cubes, with a buncha deadly traps. - Cube 2: Hypercube: Buncha people, trapped in a hypercube, with less deadly traps but more confusion as to wtf is going on. Both movies are fairly puzzling in their own right, with that sort of "unknown" sci-fi ending that is commonly found in lower-budgeted movies (e.g. Pi).
http://www.chmodoplusr.com/
Heck, It was just too easy.. solved it in less than a minute.
But I won't submit my entry into the hall of fame, otherwise the FBI will come looking for this "human computer" that can perform 10^30 trops, and exceeds export regulations :P
If you're not using firefox, you're not surfing the web, you're suffering it.
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Another way of viewing the 3D Rubik's cube (for the mathematicians out there) is as a group on 6 generators, meaning that any reachable configuration could be gotten by merely repeating the same 6 operations in some order (I believe the 6 generators being rotating the two outer 3x3x1 squares 90 degrees clockwise along any of the 3 axes).
Using this group, you could do various things like find the odds that a random arrangement of stickers is actually solvable (take the size of the group divided by the number of possible arrangements). Are there computations involving this for the 4D cube on the web anywhere?
I found this great 1-D Rubik's Cube, here, I can embed it here on this page:
.
.
The interface is simple: just look at it. Quantum mechnaics dictates that observing it changes it's state so just assume it's solved.
Here is a magnified version:
If you still have trouble with it, my book will be coming out pretty soon.
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
Douglas Hofstadter wrote a couple of excellent columns on Rubik's cube and variations on the theme for his Metamagical Themas column in Scientific American back in the eighties (you can buy his collected columns in this book). In particular, he talks about the various ways you can modify the basic 3x3x3 cube concept - for example, 4x4x4 cubes, 3x3x3 tetrahedra, alternate colour schemes, and so on (along the way, investigating the spark of inspiration that encourages people to try out different variations on a theme - something he refers to elsewhere in his books as 'conceptual slippage' - this hypercube would be a 'slip' along a different axis to those hofstadter explores - I'm sure he'd appreciate it :) ). He goes into plenty of detail about the mathematical approaches you can use to solving the cube, and some intriguing analogues to subatomic physics that crop up in the maths of rubik... anybody wanting an introduction to the kinds of topics the people behind this hypercube are exploring could do worse than to read those articles.
There's also some excellent stuff in that book on Lisp, quantum mechanics, chaos theory, Alan Turing, and nuclear war... great selection of articles by an extremely interesting mind.
Those are only descriptions of a hypercube that is projected onto a three-dimensional space or intersected with a three-dimensional space.
A real hypercube looks like a hypercube, not a cube with lines or anything else... of course you need to be five-dimensional to perceive the whole thing at once.
In general you need N+1 dimensions to perceive an N-dimensional object; for example, we can only fully perceive two dimensional objects all at once. Three dimensional objects we only see a particular side of, and generally only the surface. A four-dimensional being could potentially see the entire three dimensional object all at once, just as we perceive two-dimensional objects all at once. A two-dimensional being only sees one dimension around him, and can only see a certain side of, say, a square.
Note that there's nothing magical about any of this, or particularly unbelievable; if you're having trouble believing it's this simple your mind has been corrupted by bad sci-fi, probably Star Trek.
The colours, the horrible colours!
Blue links and black test on a dark grey background. What was this guy thinking?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
> It's not LEGOS, legos, LEGOS'.. ITS LEGO
It's not "ITS", it's "IT'S".