From mreid@ptc.com  Sat Dec 17 14:53:48 1994
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Date: Sat, 17 Dec 1994 15:03:32 -0500
From: mreid@ptc.com (michael reid)
Message-Id: <9412172003.AA27879@ducie.ptc.com>
To: cube-lovers%life.ai.mit.edu@ptc.com
Subject: planning in permutation groups
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here is some more info on the algorithm i briefly described yesterday.

the paper i have is "planning and learning in permutation groups", by
fiat, moses, shamir, shimshoni and tardos.  it appeared in the 30th
annual symposium on foundations of computer science, pp 274-9.

the paper mentions that they have calculated all identities of length 16
(they count face turns).  this means that the algorithm was successfully
implemented for the list  L  of all configurations within 4 face turns
of start!

also, alan gives a much more detailed description of this algorithm
in the archives.  see his message of may 27, 1987 "shamir's talk really
was about how to solve the cube!"  (cube-mail-6)

i encourage people to look up the paper and/or alan's message.  this is
an exciting development, and the lack of attention this idea has
received is a shame.

regards,

mike