Thread: "Introducing myself, *long post warning*"

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Hi Eli,

Great job with the cube! I find it refreshing how you love your hometown an=
d your brothers and find that the obvious thing for you to do.=20

30000 is epic! Is there a record for max twists? I never really figured out=
how to get macros working when I did the cube but maybe I'll have to play =
around with them some more, they seem pretty fun!

Dave

> On Aug 1, 2016, at 1:28 PM, Eli Reid reideli@rocketmail.com [4D_Cubing] <=
4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>=20
> Hello everyone! I am Eli Reid and I solved the 3^4 puzzle yesterday. I'm =
18 years old and am from Scotland. I live in a village of about 600 people =
in what one might call the middle of nowhere (not that it's the most remote=
place there is, far from it), which is my favourite place that I've visite=
d or lived in so far in the world (it's my home, so of course I would say t=
hat, wouldn't I?).=20
>=20
> I should add that I only got a computer last December, so I'm not really =
too sure how to get it to do everything I want it to yet, but I was able to=
find and download MagicCube4D, so I'm doing OK I think!
>=20
> Alright then, some stuff about me.=20
> I have two brothers, one who is my ('fraternal', or 'not identical' as I =
more commonly have to say) twin, and the other who is much younger than me,=
who are both the best brothers in the world, not that I'm biased or anythi=
ng.=20
>=20
> I have travelled a fair bit (my parents travelled the world together and =
lived in various countries before having children). I have visited all of t=
he following countries/places: Canada; France; Wales; hundreds of locations=
in England and Scotland, from the lake district to the Orkney Islands; Swi=
tzerland; Greece; Denmark; Malaysia; Majorca; the Bahamas (I lived there fo=
r a year and a half when I was about three) - well, all over the place real=
ly. I intend to increase the size of this list a great deal in the future.
>=20
> I have interests in all sorts of things, but I'll list them in no particu=
lar order:
>=20
> Academically, most of my interest lies with the empirical sciences and wi=
th mathematics. Not much to say there, except that physics is my favourite.
>=20
> I like French (reading, writing, speaking, listening to it...whatever), W=
arhammer, Yu-Gi-Oh!, mtg, Origami, juggling (3 objects, or 2 in one hand, n=
ot 4 just yet), walking about in the countryside (mostly where I live), mak=
ing (and eating) nice food (which translates to food preferably involving b=
asil, garlic and olive oil - I'm vegetarian, and one of my grandmothers is =
Italian, if that explains that), ...
>=20
> ...and of course, I enjoy solving puzzles. Particularly puzzles of the tw=
isty variety. I solved the Rubik's cube (3x3x3) last year, but (though it f=
rustrates me that I did so) I used the booklet that came with it to help me=
solve it (it was a something something special anniversary edition cube th=
at included a 'handy solution guide'), which unfortunately made solving it =
not seem quite so wonderful nor impressive. Not that I really realised that=
it would at the time.=20
>=20
> However, I did then learn some speedsolving algorithms, and was content t=
o use those, and play about with the cube, until last month. When I decided=
I would solve some other twisty puzzles myself. So, I then went online and=
found a simulator for various cubes. And solved the 2x2x2 (which was easy)=
, then the 4x4x4, and then the 5x5x5, in the space of a couple of days. The=
y weren't particularly difficult - the solving of the centres and the edges=
was quite intuitive, and then it was just a 3x3x3 with complications, the =
complications being the only difficult part, really. I deliberately avoided=
using someone else's algorithms for these. It was then, about two weeks ag=
o, when I watched the mathologer video (I was subscribed, but because of th=
e mathsy videos not the expectation of seeing a cube video.) describing the=
4D cube and how you could fiddle with the settings to make it look like a =
3D cube, do a sequence, then fiddle the settings again and see what happene=
d, using this as a starting point to make commutators for your algorithms. =
So I found the MagicCube4D site, downloaded the program, and the rest, as t=
hey say, is history. All credit to mathologer for giving such an intuitive =
explanation for how to make algorithms for the 4D cube, (and for not tellin=
g me what the algorithms actually were, because that could have made solvin=
g it feel like much less of an accomplishment.)=20
>=20
> Interestingly enough, my first solve of the 4D ... hypercube? Tesseract? =
I like both names ... *ahem* my first solve took exactly thirty thousand tw=
ists. (I had two or three macros that took about 1200 twists, which might e=
xplain that)
>=20
> OK so this seemed post quite long to me, but feel free to send zillions o=
f replies or completely ignore it, as you please.
>=20
>=20
>=20

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Hi Hypercubers,

I've got a new puzzle variant of the Klein Quartic surface for you that I'm
excited to share. This puzzle was suggested to me by Arnaud Cheritat
at a workshop on illustrating
mathematics, and uses a new kind of twisting. aside: Arnaud has made
a beautiful
applet to
explore the quartic.

Rather than slice up the surface with circles that can be shrunk to a
point, we slice it up with systolic (shortest length) geodesics. These
geodesics cut the surface "around the horn" as Melinda has described in the
past. To picture an analogous geodesic, think of a circle on a torus that
can not be shrunk to a point, but which is shrunk as small as possible (see
the beginning of this article
).

Why call this the Earthquake? That was a term Arnaud was using, and it
turns out quite descriptive when you see a portion of the surface shearing
along a systole. It is even more appropriate because it is necessary to
temporarily detach the surface from itself during the course of a twist.
The surface remains connected along one systole (the movement near this
slice reminds me of the "Big Chop" puzzle), but detaches along the other
two systoles, swapping the material connected to each of them. The twist
animation hopefully gives a flavor of the surface separating and
reattaching to itself.

I attempted to make it intuitive to control an earthquake twist, but note
there are three ways to twist a set of systoles (6 if you count direction,
but direction doesn't affect state so it's only a visual thing). Here's a
video introducing the twisting. Here are a
few images , showing the puzzle
pristine and scrambled.

I have not tried to solve this puzzle yet. I hope it is a good challenge,
though I wonder if the fact that twists result in 2-cycles of stickers
might make it on the easy side. It certainly turned out to be a bear to
implement!

Grab the latest MagicTile
, check
it out, and give us some detailed notes of anything you discover while
solving it!

Cheers,
Roice

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