From reid@math.berkeley.edu Sun May 17 22:10:48 1992 Return-Path: Received: from math.berkeley.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA20296; Sun, 17 May 92 22:10:48 EDT Received: from phnom-penh.berkeley.edu.berkeley.edu by math.berkeley.edu (4.1/1.33(math)) id AA08289; Sun, 17 May 92 19:10:33 PDT Date: Sun, 17 May 92 19:10:33 PDT From: reid@math.berkeley.edu (michael reid) Message-Id: <9205180210.AA08289@math.berkeley.edu> To: Dik.Winter@cwi.nl, cube-lovers@life.ai.mit.edu, keng@zcar.asd.sgi.com Subject: Re: My program is too fast ;-). stop it, you're killing me! i also have the same idea for combining the "coordinates" in pairs, but i'm not getting too far implementing it. :-( i wouldn't suggest using singmaster's notes for pattern maneuvers. have you seen bandelow's book? it has very short maneuvers for most patterns, including two different ones for "walker's worm" in 14 turns (assuming i've got the right pattern in mind). bandelow counts "slice turns" as one move, though, so his maneuver for 6X (order 3) is 24 face turns. what amazes me about this whole business is that the algorithm finds very short moves when they exist. i would have expected the program to produce maneuvers of approximately the same length for all patterns. i would say that this is a major step forward. you'll probably be swamped with patterns to test, but here's a couple: stripes: (18) F3 U1 F2 U3 R1 B2 R3 U1 F2 L2 U3 L1 B2 L3 U1 L2 U3 F1. python: (15) R1 U3 F3 B1 L1 F2 L3 F1 B3 U3 R3 L1 F2 U2 L3. since i found these by hand, i'm curious to see how close they are to optimal. hopefully i'll have my program running soon. mike