From cube-lovers-errors@mc.lcs.mit.edu Thu Oct 8 19:47:11 1998 Return-Path: Received: from sun28.aic.nrl.navy.mil by mc.lcs.mit.edu (8.8.8/mc) with SMTP id TAA24896; Thu, 8 Oct 1998 19:47:10 -0400 (EDT) Precedence: bulk Errors-To: cube-lovers-errors@mc.lcs.mit.edu Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 16:45:31 +0100 From: David Singmaster To: cube-lovers@ai.mit.edu Message-Id: <009CD663.86DEF2D6.16@ice.sbu.ac.uk> Subject: Nicholas Bodley's message of 22 Sep 1998. Nicholas Bodley's message reminds me of when I wrote about the Cube in 1978 or early 1979, I think in the Observer, which seems to have been the first article outside Hungary. I mentioned that the mechanical problem seemed even harder than the mathematical problem and this led to about six submissions of mechanisms from readers. All but one of these were clearly impossible, but the last was Rubik's mechanism with slight differences - e.g. he had the undersides of the centers rounded. The submitter of this was a UK patent agent with obvious mechanical aptitude. However, one of my students, who had bought a cube from me, told me that a friend rang her up and asked if she had seen the hoax article about a cube that moved in all directions. The friend had just proven that such an object was impossible. My student had to disabuse her. When the cubes first came out of Hungary, we didn't know what the mechanism was and they were too precious to fiddle with. Roger Penrose said he had one face center piece come undone and he carefully wrapped thread around the exposed part of the screw and worked the screw into place and pulled on the thread to screw the screw back into the central piece. Sometime in late 1978, a friend had trouble with his cube and took a screwdriver to it and discovered the cover plates and the screw heads inside! Enough for now. DAVID SINGMASTER, Professor of Mathematics and Metagrobologist School of Computing, Information Systems and Mathematics Southbank University, London, SE1 0AA, UK. Tel: 0171-815 7411; fax: 0171-815 7499; email: zingmast or David.Singmaster @sbu.ac.uk