From Don.Woods@eng.sun.com Sun Apr 19 02:58:44 1992 Return-Path: Received: from Sun.COM by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA28800; Sun, 19 Apr 92 02:58:44 EDT Received: from Eng.Sun.COM (zigzag-bb.Corp.Sun.COM) by Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA25155; Sat, 18 Apr 92 23:58:35 PDT Received: from colossal.Eng.Sun.COM by Eng.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA23499; Sat, 18 Apr 92 23:58:43 PDT Received: by colossal.Eng.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA04381; Sat, 18 Apr 92 23:58:42 PDT Date: Sat, 18 Apr 92 23:58:42 PDT From: Don.Woods@eng.sun.com (Don Woods) Message-Id: <9204190658.AA04381@colossal.Eng.Sun.COM> To: ccw@eql.caltech.edu, cube-lovers@ai.mit.edu, pl1x+@andrew.cmu.edu Subject: Re: Some solutions to Rubik's Tangle have been found. > From: Peter Andrew Lopez > I love cubes > But i'll never admit it! > cube-annonymous In addition to being self-contradicting (and misspelled), the above seems to have nothing to do with the subject of Rubik's Tangle. Lest this message suffer the same flaw, I'll add that I too was unable to come up with any mathematical or intuitive method for solving the Tangle. I solved mine by computer. (I've always been fairly good at finding ways to prune a bushy search tree down to manageable size.) I have Tangle #1 and can confirm it has exactly two solutions (ignoring overall rotations of the 5x5 array, of course). I haven't had a chance to examine closely the other Tangles. How do they differ from #1? Do they use a different pattern of connectivity on the tiles? Do they have a different mix of the permutations? (#1 has each 4-color permutation exactly once, except for one permutation which appears twice.) I hope they do not simply permute the colors relative to #1; that would be dull since they would then be identical puzzles, and collecting more than one would be silly except for the purpose of building the 10x10 combined puzzle. -- Don.