From cube-lovers-errors@mc.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jan 27 18:52:18 2000 Return-Path: Received: from sun28.aic.nrl.navy.mil (sun28.aic.nrl.navy.mil [132.250.84.38]) by mc.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1a/8.9.1-mod) with SMTP id SAA24358 for ; Thu, 27 Jan 2000 18:52:18 -0500 (EST) Precedence: bulk Errors-To: cube-lovers-errors@mc.lcs.mit.edu Message-Id: <388AB533.798B2C6@health.on.net> Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 18:30:51 +1030 From: Ghan Reply-To: ghan@health.on.net To: Cube-Lovers Subject: Stuff... Hi everyone! This is my first post to Cube-Lovers! I don't really know whether most people on this mailing list are regulars or just a bunch of strangers who don't know each other, but I'll introduce myself anyway. I am: Justin Ghan, recently turned 18 year old, about to start his second year of Engineering/Science at Adelaide University, South Australia. I wasn't really interested in all this cube stuff until the middle of last year ... Well, when I was really young, my cousin had a pyraminx and I solved that. But yeah, last July, I got one of my friends to teach me how to solve the Rubik's Cube, which I have ever since regretted, since I really would have liked to solve it myself... Since then, I've bought a Megaminx from Meffert's and also won a Professor Cube (thanks to the Puzzle Challenge!). I solved both of them mostly using altered Rubik's Cube sequences, which sort of dampened my satisfaction because I knew I didn't REALLY fully solve them myself. I borrowed a friend's Creative Puzzle Ball (I'm not sure what it's officially called) and managed to be able to solve it in a trial-and-error sort of way. I also bought a Bandaged Cube recently, which arrived only yesterday and is annoying the hell out of me - I've only solved it once by accident so far. And I wasn't paying attention so I don't know how I did it. I've also got a Square-One and a Skewb Diamond coming in the mail. I can't wait! I was a bit intimidated when I read through the past couple of years worth of Cube-Lovers mail because I always thought I was pretty smart at maths (I went to the International Mathematical Olympiad twice) and was also pretty proud of my puzzling skills but I couldn't make head nor tail of most of the mathematical discussion! I've been trying to learn some group theory since, so I hope one day I'll be able to join in. Anyway, I have quite a few unrelated questions I need help with... First of all, the glue on my Megaminx is failing, meaning that every time I turn a face I have to pause to readjust all the stickers which have slid out of place. This is obviously very annoying. Any ideas on what to do? What type of glue could I use to secure all the stickers more permanently? By the way, I really like the grooved tiles on the Bandaged Cube (and all the new Meffert's Puzzles, I think), although the colours aren't as bright. Now for the Professor Cube ... I've seen various solutions on the internet but so far I haven't found anybody else who uses the boring layer by layer approach. Does anybody else do it my way? It's probably a really slow, inefficient method but it seemed the most obvious to me when I started, since that's how I solved the Rubik's Cube and the Megaminx. The reason I ask is that I would really like a fix for the parity problem when I get to the last layer. When I end up with two edge pieces swapped, I have to stuff up the last two layers completely, which takes ages to redo. I've been considering buying an Assembly Cube since, believe it or not, I don't actually have a Rubik's Cube (although I can use the Professor Cube as one). But I don't really know much about them. What's going on with the 3-colour Assembly Cube at Meffert's? Also, if I buy a Assembly Siamese Cube, can I use it to assemble a normal Rubik's Cube? And what's the Alexander's Star? And I thought I saw a "Star of David" (or something) mentioned on the Meffert's website... Finally, I decided today to try my hand at some programming. Now, I haven't had any programming experience except for extremely basic BASIC, years and years ago on my Commodore 64. But I wanted to see if I could write a program to solve the Bandaged Cube, so I tried to learn some QBASIC. I thought it would be easier to solve a 2x2x2 cube first, so I finally managed to write a working program to do that. It was just a brute force search, first testing all 1 move algorithms, then 2 move algorithms, etc. I thought I was pretty good until I discovered that my program took 18 minutes to check all the 9 move algorithms! (I have a Pentium II 266, although not being very computer smart I'm not sure how much difference this makes.) I found out that more than half the configurations required 9 moves or more. Well, this was pretty embarrassing, considering that there are computer programs which can solve the 3x3x3 in seconds (or so I've read, I haven't tried any of these programs). So I'm wondering how to write a fast solver. Is my program slow because of my bad programming skills, or is my method just plain slow? I can't think of any other methods to find the solution. I hope some of you can help with my problems. I also realise that some of my questions may have been answered in past discussions, but I wasn't willing to read through 20 years of archives to find out! If you can direct me to a previous relevant discussion, that would also be appreciated. Thanks! Justin