Slashdot Mirror
A Working 5D Rubik's Cube
Melinda Green writes "Readers who enjoyed the previous
Slashdot postings regarding the 4-dimensional Rubik's cube called MagicCube4D will
be interested to know that a couple of brilliant developers have
recently created a working 5-dimensional Rubik's
cube. Operating a 5 dimensional puzzle projected all the way down
to a 2D computer screen may seem a hopeless task but the full 5D puzzle
has already been solved
by 3 people. Also noteworthy is the fact that the 4D puzzle has now
been ported to Java and is available as both a full-featured desktop
application and as an Applet."
n/t
...it requires .NET. Thanks. I don't mind downloading and installing 30MB's of framework just to play with a Rubik's cube. Really, I don't.
after seeing the picture on the front page.. Given that i probably will be dead within the next 100 years i doubt i'll have time to finish it anyways, it's just to many dimensions..
Anyone know where you can buy a real 5D cube? I hate trying to solve them on a computer screen. Much easier in real life.
Also I will need a spare set of 4 dimensional stickers in case the original ones fall off.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
...peel off the stickers in 5 dimensions?
And the least time in which I could solve the cube was 20 minutes.
o n.html
Using a few simple, easy-to-learn algorithms, and with a few weeks practice it is possible for pretty much anyone to solve the 3D cube in just 2 or 3 minutes. Using a layer-by-layer method you can solve each piece one at a time in the first two layers, then learn 4 algorithms to fix the last layer (not necessarily in this order):
1) Rotate edges
2) Rotate corners
3) Permute corners
4) Permute edges
Sometimes you will have to use an algorithm twice. Each algorithm takes about 10 moves, and at a slow speed of one move per second and a bit of luck you can solve the last layer in under a minute. Here's a beginner's guide:
http://peter.stillhq.com/jasmine/rubikscubesoluti
If you want to get faster you need to learn more algorithms so that you can complete two steps at once.
A popular method which can be used to get very fast times is the Fridrich method, but it requires a lot of memorisation and lots and lots of practice:
http://www.ws.binghamton.edu/fridrich/cube.html
Personally I managed to get times of under 1 minute by practising the cube every day in the bus to and from work.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeerd!!!!
... And don't get me started on the five diementional one...
Damn... And I thought I was hopelessly nerdy.
I must look positively herculean next to these guys.
I remember spending the better part of an afternoon last summer trying to solve my girlfriend's father's 20 year old rubiks cube.
I was really close to solving it when it litterally fell apart in my hands. Turns out one of the (now grown up) kids had once tried to forcibly solve it with a screwdriver. Now, whenever you it get into a certain configuration (ie: a near-finished state) it loses all structural integrity.
I could have cried... I WAS SO CLOSE!!!
I was crazy to spend so long on a three diementional rubik's cube.
But, I don't know which is crazier... That someone made a four diementional version, or that people have already solved it.
A 4 Dimensional Cube is called a Tesseract, unless you assume time is a dimension (which it frequently is/is cited as being).
That 4d java applet is amazing! It even runs perfectly fast on my Pentium II.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Is there anyone reading with the brains/training to confidently/accurately answer some questions please?
"These are Rubik's cubes of the form 3d, with the original popular puzzle being 33. We label the puzzles like this because they are a d-dimensional cube broken into 3d smaller pieces or "cubies" of the same dimension. For example, the 3D cube has 33 or 27 total 3-dimensional cubies."
Does adding cubies really mean adding a dimension, or does it mean simply making a more complicated 3D puzzle and giving it a fancy name? (Behold: the Fifth Dimension! Amaze Your Friends!)
I noticed in the 4D model that elements disappear and reappear with each move. What's up with that? What do the green cubes represent? Where are the pieces which disappear supposed to be going, and why can't we see the changes being made to this set of cubies? Is the invisible set a cheat on the part of the designers?
I have not played with the 5D version, and so have no questions about that one.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
If you exist in one dimension, is the 2nd dimension neccessarilry width, or is it height? There are many other choices, but we tend to pick time because it is easily understood by us.
..........FULL STOP.
5-dimensional Rubik's Cube is word evil.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Oh my god, you're right! It does look like he wrote this application in .NET solely for the purpose of being a huge burden on everyone! After thinking about it, I guess it really does have nothing to do with .NET probably being the language he's most familiar with. I'm sure that he probably did want to spend several months learning a new language for something that could best be described as an amusing diversion, but chose not to because he wanted to waste the few minutes it would take you to download and install .NET. Come to think of it, I'm sure the fact that most people already have .NET installed probably just makes him mad, because it mitigates the toll his application will take on society.
The fact that it's kind of cool is only a ruse in his more diabolical agenda of making your life miserable for five or so minutes. The fact that we are compelled to install it by means I don't quite understand yet only makes the situation worse. If only we had a choice whether or not we wanted to play with a 5-dimensional Rubik's Cube!
Personally, I think that if you're as outraged as I am, since you're obviously so much smarter then me, you should rewrite his application in a morally superior language. The kink in this fool's plan is that he seems to have forgotten to patent the application (but be careful, it could be another trick!), which leaves the door open for anyone to simply rewrite it!
Please start working on it right away, as this outrage must not go unanswered!
What is the 5th dimension?
They were a 1970's group, they had a hit called "Aquarius".
Why must people always strive to make things more complicated. I say someone should design and implement a 2D Rubik Cube. Personally, I'd find that far more fun.
Although time is said to be the 4th dimension is time, it is only an analogy. Time appears in several physical equations in a context similar to the 3 spatial dimensions, but it is always treated differently.
For example, the spacetime "distance" is calculated by:
sqrt(x^2+y^2+z^2-c^2*t^2)
Notice the negative sign and the additional speed-of-light factor.
If there were 4 spatial dimensions, the distance would be calculated by
sqrt(x^2+y^2+z^2 + v^2)
taking v as the displacement in the 4th dimension.
The Rubik's cube programs work by projecting 4 or 5 dimensions onto a 2 dimensional plane (your screen), basically in the same way that perspective is used to project 3D pictures onto 2D planes.
So the 4th and 5th dimension aren't mathematically or conceptually different to the familiar 3 dimensions. The only difference is that we cannot comprehend them.
That's just because it's not 4-D Euclidean space. Space-time is still considered as a 4-dimensional manifold, it just has a different metric on it. The term used is Minkowski space.
Hmmm. Maybe even I could solve a 2D Rubik without having to buy a damned book. If not, maybe the 1D?
Table-ized A.I.
it's pretty simple, really. Y'know how we draw a cube in 2D as two squares with the corners connected?
You can 'draw' a 4D cube in 3D space by making two wireframe cubes, and joining all the equivalent corners. You can also think of it as a cube moving from one place to another, with every 'frame' inbetween shown.