Date: 27 June 1983 19:04 EDT From: Alan Bawden Subject: Bizarre Bricks To: CUBE-LOVERS @ MIT-MC A bizarre variant of the "bricks" described by Isaacs last week is currently sitting on the front desk of the SIPB office at MIT. Imagine that you took three cubies along any edge of a cube and welded them together (perhaps by taping over the cracks as Singmaster suggests). Now imagine that you perform the same mutilation on a second cube. Now imagine that you arrange to \share/ the same 1 x 1 x 3 cubie between the two cubes. The resulting arrangement looks like this from above: XXX XXX XXXXX XXX XXX A moment's thought should convince you that sharing the 1 x 1 x 3 cubie has done \nothing/ to increase the difficulty of the puzzle. Amazing what lengths puzzle manufacturers will go to to try and squeeze a few more bucks out of the Cube Craze.