Thread: "Introductions"

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Hello Liam and welcome!

Of course it's impressive that someone so young solves such a difficult
puzzle, but perhaps even more impressive is that you've made progress
against solving what Dr. Emmett Brown calls the most difficult puzzle
all: Women. :-) If you can master that one, I'm sure that particle
physics will seem like child's play! Something tells me that that very
cool mother of yours had something to do with that.

I'm not much of a puzzle-solver myself but I don't know the parity
problem you described. Maybe it's possible because you solved the pieces
in a different order from Roice's solution? I hope you will try your
hand at some of the other puzzles that MC4D supports and some of the
other puzzles that our members have created. Being a programmer yourself
I suspect you may also enjoy creating some virtual twisty puzzles.

Whatever you do, have fun!
-Melinda

On 3/31/2016 1:32 AM, liamjwright@btinternet.com [4D_Cubing] wrote:
>
>
> Hey all,
>
>
> My name is Liam, and I'm a 16 year old from the least beautiful part
> of Kent: Gravesend. As a 16 year old, I don't really have much going
> for me yet, so I spend much of my spare time as an amateur programmer
> and geometric puzzle enthusiast, although I am hoping to move in to
> particle physics once I'm thrown out into the scary wide world. In the
> rest of my downtime, I'm an avid pokemon fan and PC gamer.
>
>
> I always found geometry to be one of the more interesting parts of
> maths, so I suppose I was destined to find myself drowning in Rubiks
> cubes and other such puzzles. I started out in early 2014, when some
> evil child scrambled my 3x3. I couldn't bear to have it sitting around
> all messed up, so I learned to solve it. I was pretty happy with it
> myself, and it provided a good bit of entertainment for my classmates,
> so I kept at it. Fast forward 8 months, and I'd reached sub-30. It was
> at this point I decided to halt the speedcubing, and moved onto other
> puzzles. I started with the Rubiks Revenge, which was a stiff, clunky
> pain in the backside that took forever to solve. From there I moved up
> to higher order knockoff cubes, then onto other shapes like the
> Megaminx. Most of my puzzles are cubic or shapemods, many of which I
> inherited from my mother, so I have a few cool, rare puzzles, but my
> pride and joy has to be my ghost cube, a gift from my now-ex.
>
>
> I have no idea when I was introduced to the 4D cube. Probably years
> ago, long before I could even solve a 3x3. However, last Monday
> (28/03/16), I rediscovered it and found the 4D hall of fame. And it
> was in that moment that I was captured. One way or another, I was
> getting my name on that list. So, I sat down on that dark Monday
> night, and I started my quest. By the time I went to bed two hours
> later, I had a cross done,which really put into scope for me how
> different the 4D cube is to th e 3D equivalent. The next day, I spent
> 8 hours grinding away at it. In the first 3, I finished the two
> colours, using mostly intuition and applying skills from the lower
> dimensional cubes. In the rest, I completed all but one cell's worth
> of three colour pieces. The next day, I spent another 6 hours. By this
> point, I'd got into the swing of it, and it was just a grinding
> process of commutating and rotating. Then, after a grand total of 4503
> moves, it was done.
>
>
> I can't say that I'd be able to solve it again off the back of my
> hand. I spent so long on it that by the time I'd finished, the first
> steps were all but forgotten. But it was an interesting experience.
> The guide on superliminal proved to be invaluable, but it did miss one
> extremely important detail: the dreaded 2-colour-piece parity. The
> half-hour I spent trying to fix that infernal parity with futile
> three-cycles was not fun at all. But aside from that, the guide was
> perfect, and the experience very fun.
>
>
> Congratulations to all you brilliant folk who have completed this
> monster cube, and I am honoured to stand among you all!
>


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">


Hello Liam and welcome!



Of course it's impressive that someone so young solves such a
difficult puzzle, but perhaps even more impressive is that you've
made progress against solving what Dr. Emmett Brown calls the most
difficult puzzle all: Women. :-) If you can master that one, I'm
sure that particle physics will seem like child's play! Something
tells me that that very cool mother of yours had something to do
with that.



I'm not much of a puzzle-solver myself but I don't know the parity
problem you described. Maybe it's possible because you solved the
pieces in a different order from Roice's solution? I hope you will
try your hand at some of the other puzzles that MC4D supports and
some of the other puzzles that our members have created. Being a
programmer yourself I suspect you may also enjoy creating some
virtual twisty puzzles.



Whatever you do, have fun!

-Melinda

Hey all,

My name is Liam, and I'm a 16 year old from the least beautiful
part of Kent: Gravesend. As a 16 year old, I don't really have
much going for me yet, so I spend much of my spare time as an
amateur programmer and geometric puzzle enthusiast, although I
am hoping to move in to particle physics once I'm thrown out
into the scary wide world. In the rest of my downtime, I'm an
avid pokemon fan and PC gamer.

I always found geometry to be one of the more interesting parts
of maths, so I suppose I was destined to find myself drowning in
Rubiks cubes and other such puzzles. I started out in early
2014, when some evil child scrambled my 3x3. I couldn't bear to
have it sitting around all messed up, so I learned to solve it.
I was pretty happy with it myself, and it provided a good bit of
entertainment for my classmates, so I kept at it. Fast forward 8
months, and I'd reached sub-30. It was at this point I decided
to halt the speedcubing, and moved onto other puzzles. I started
with the Rubiks Revenge, which was a stiff, clunky pain in the
backside that took forever to solve. From there I moved up to
higher order knockoff cubes, then onto other shapes like the
Megaminx. Most of my puzzles are cubic or shapemods, many of
which I inherited from my mother, so I have a few cool, rare
puzzles, but my pride and joy has to be my ghost cube, a gift
from my now-ex.

I have no idea when I was introduced to the 4D =C2=A0cube. Probabl=
y
years ago, long before I could even solve a 3x3. However, last
Monday (28/03/16), I rediscovered it and found the 4D hall of
fame. And it was in that moment that I was captured. One way or
another, I was getting my name on that list. So, I sat down on
that dark Monday night, and I started my quest. By the time I
went to bed two hours later, I had a cross done,which really put
into scope for me how different the 4D cube is to th e 3D
equivalent. The next day, I spent 8 hours grinding away at it.
In the first 3, I finished the two colours, using mostly
intuition and applying skills from the lower dimensional cubes.
In the rest, I completed all but one cell's worth of three
colour pieces. The next day, I spent another 6 hours. By this
point, I'd got into the swing of it, and it was just a grinding
process of commutating and rotating. Then, after a grand total
of 4503 moves, it was done.

I can't say that I'd be able to solve it again off the back of
my hand. I spent so long on it that by the time I'd finished,
the first steps were all but forgotten. But it was an
interesting experience. The guide on superliminal proved to be
invaluable, but it did miss one extremely important detail: the
dreaded 2-colour-piece parity. The half-hour I spent trying to
fix that infernal parity with futile three-cycles was not fun at
all. But aside from that, the guide was perfect, and the
experience very fun.

Congratulations to all you brilliant folk who have completed
this monster cube, and I am honoured to stand among you all!

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Are you sure you really understand the 3D puzzle? imagine a 10x10x10.
That's 1,000 cubies, right? But a great many of them are completely
interior, 0-color pieces, and the part you solve is only the thin, 2D
surface. The faces of 4D twisty puzzles similarly surround regions of
4-space that we are generally unaware of, and we work with their 3D
"surfaces". So now it should be clear that the 3x3x3 is built around a
true cube but we've given it a misleading name. It might almost be
better to call it the 3x3x6, and the 4D version the 3x3x3x8.

I can't say much about the difficulty of the 2^D puzzles but it's safe
to say that each 3^D is really a collection of 3 nearly independent
puzzles of which one is a 2^D.

-Melinda

On 4/18/2016 12:13 PM, liamjwright@btinternet.com [4D_Cubing] wrote:
>
>
> I have finally cracked how to use the reply function. Turns out, I
> haven't been signed in for weeks without even realising, which is why
> I couldn't reply to anything. Not my finest moment really.
>
> Anyways, how does a 2^4 compare in difficulty to the 3^4? I've yet to
> really take a proper look, with exam season coming up, but I'm curious
> to find out how an extra dimension alters the simple 2x2x2.
>
> Another question: What makes it a 3x3x3x3? A 3x3x3 is fairly obvious,
> being 3 cubies wide, 3 cubies deep, and 3 cubies tall, but where do we
> get the additional x3 from in relation to the 8 cells of the 3^4?


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Are you sure you really understand the 3D puzzle? imagine a
10x10x10. That's 1,000 cubies, right? But a great many of them are
completely interior, 0-color pieces, and the part you solve is only
the thin, 2D surface. The faces of 4D twisty puzzles similarly
surround regions of 4-space that we are generally unaware of, and we
work with their 3D "surfaces". So now it should be clear that the
3x3x3 is built around a true cube but we've given it a misleading
name. It might almost be better to call it the 3x3x6, and the 4D
version the 3x3x3x8.



I can't say much about the difficulty of the 2^D puzzles but it's
safe to say that each 3^D is really a collection of 3 nearly
independent puzzles of which one is a 2^D.



-Melinda

I have finally cracked how to use the reply function. Turns out, I
haven't been signed in for weeks without even realising, which is
why I couldn't reply to anything. Not my finest moment really.

Anyways, how does a 2^4 compare in difficulty to the 3^4?
I've yet to really take a proper look, with exam season coming
up, but I'm curious to find out how an extra dimension alters
the simple 2x2x2.

Another question: What makes it a 3x3x3x3? A 3x3x3 is fairly
obvious, being 3 cubies wide, 3 cubies deep, and 3 cubies tall,
but where do we get the additional x3 from in relation to the 8
cells of the 3^4?

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Oh, the new dimensions are used properly. I'm just saying that it's not
as obvious as one might think.
-Melinda

On 4/18/2016 11:22 PM, liamjwright@btinternet.com [4D_Cubing] wrote:
>
>
> As I understand, the '3x3x3' notation refers to size, such that on any
> given 'x*y*z', from any of the vertices you can move x arbitrary units
> in one direction, y in another, and z in another, and reach another
> vertex. This holds true for all of our 3D cubes, where our arbitrary
> unit is a cubie. Does this notation become obsolete in higher
> dimensions, and we just use the 3^4 name because it looks nice? Or is
> there actually a mathematical application of the new 'x3' added on?


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Oh, the new dimensions are used properly. I'm just saying that it's
not as obvious as one might think.

-Melinda

As I understand, the '3x3x3' notation refers to size, such that on
any given 'x*y*z', from any of the vertices you can move x
arbitrary units in one direction, y in another, and z in another,
and reach another vertex. This holds true for all of our 3D cubes,
where our arbitrary unit is a cubie. Does this notation become
obsolete in higher dimensions, and we just use the 3^4 name
because it looks nice? Or is there actually a mathematical
application of the new 'x3' added on?

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I've always thought of this notation as describing the stacking of cubies
(not to be confused with stickers), where in the normal Rubik's Cube there
are 3x3x3 =3D 3^3 =3D 27 cubies.

In MagicCube4D, there are 3x3x3x3 =3D 3^4 =3D 81 hypercubies. Of course we
only see the stickers in the program.

So the notation is not obsolete in higher dimensions and naturally
describes the structure. It still makes sense if the notation refers to
size like you described for the 3x3x3 too. From a vertex, you can move 3
units in any of 4 directions (x,y,z,w) to reach another vertex.

Roice


On Tue, Apr 19, 2016 at 1:22 AM, liamjwright@btinternet.com [4D_Cubing] <
4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

>
>
> As I understand, the '3x3x3' notation refers to size, such that on any
> given 'x*y*z', from any of the vertices you can move x arbitrary units in
> one direction, y in another, and z in another, and reach another vertex.
> This holds true for all of our 3D cubes, where our arbitrary unit is a
> cubie. Does this notation become obsolete in higher dimensions, and we ju=
st
> use the 3^4 name because it looks nice? Or is there actually a mathematic=
al
> application of the new 'x3' added on?
>
>=20
>

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