Message #209

From: Andrzej Komisarski <poczta@andkom.pl>
Subject: Hello! and Fw: Congratulations!
Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 17:36:13 +0100

Hello, I am new to this group.
Instead of introducing myself let me forward here my discussion
with Melinda (everything interesting about me and my experiences with
MagicCube4d is included in this discussion).

Melinda Green wrote:

>Andrzej Komisarski wrote:
>
>>Melinda Green wrote:
>>
>>>Hello Andrzej,
>>>
>>>Congratulations on becoming the latest person to solve the full 4D cube!
>>>It’s always great to hear from another MC4D solver. One of my more
>>>pleasant tasks is to welcome such new members to a rather elite group.
>>>I notice that your name and address appear Polish. We have quite a few
>>>Polish solvers in our group. Did you perhaps learn about the 4D cube
>>>through other Polish cubists, perhaps involving the speed solving
>>>championships? There’s certainly something about Poland that seems to
>>>make for enthusiastic cubists!!
>>>
>>>It’s customary to ask each new member to write a message introducing
>>>themselves and describing where they live, how old they are, what they
>>>do for work and fun, and any other personal items they feel like
>>>sharing. Please also tell us your thoughts and experiences with this
>>>puzzle. Please also upload your log file into the "files" area so that
>>>the other members can examine it if they like. Note that your solution
>>>is not so long. Many solutions have been much longer.
>>
>>Hello,
>>
>>As you noticed, I am from Poland. I live in Lodz, which is a big city
>>in a center of Poland. I am almost 30 years old and I’m not a speed-cubist.
>>I’m a mathematician and I work at University of Lodz.
>>
>>The way I learnt about MagicCube4d is following:
>>A few weeks ago one of my students came to me and asked me to tell him,
>>how many different positions are possible for the 3x3x3 Rubik’s cube.
>>I answered his question and gave him a copy of a short article on the cube
>>(when I was a child, I used to play with the cube and I had some articles
>>concerning it). Then he started talking to me about his fascination
>>for the cube, about speedcubing, etc. He was talking that there are various
>>algorithms to solve the cube and some of them are really good (in a sense
>>of small numer of "moves" one needs to make to solve the puzzle).
>>Then I asked him about a definition of a "move", but he didn’t answer.
>>I decided to find this answer on the internet. I found a website
>>http://www.speedcubing.com.pl/ and it’s forum. One of the threads on this
>>forum (http://studzien.boo.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?t=63) is concerned with
>>MagicCube4d.
>>
>>My thoughts and experiences with Rubik’s hypercube are following:
>>Despite I’m listed as number 44 in a Hall of Fame, I’m sure that my real
>>position is much worse. I know at least two people who solved the Rubik’s
>>hypercube and are not listed in Hall of Fame. Moreover, they do not even
>>know about MagicCube4d and http://www.superliminal.com/cube/cube.htm
>>website. I learnt about these two from one of my friends. I told him about
>>MagicCube4d but he said that one of his friends had written a very similar
>>program and solved it and his another friend solved it too.
>>(Here is the program: http://www.math.uni.lodz.pl/~andkom/kostka.zip).
>>
>>My another thought is that solving the hypercube is not so difficult
>>for people who deal with maths and I think that almost every mathematician
>>would easily do this if he only tried.
>
>hello Andrzej,
>this is all very interesting information! would you please post it to
>the mailing list? i’m sure that lots of other 4d cubists will be
>interested to read it. it would also be super if you would translate and
>include a couple of the more interesting posts from the polish site that
>you cited. i’m especially surprised to hear that you think that people
>have solved the 4d cube with another program. i’ve run it and while it
>plays havoc with my screen resolution, it does run under XP and indeed
>looks like it’d be possible to solve. i can’t figure out how to perform
>a twist on it however. also, do you know the author and date it was
>first created? i want to cite it on the main MC4D page. also, is there
>an official site for that program? please answer all these questions on
>the mailing list unless there is anything you would rather relate privately.
>thanks,

I don’t know the author personally. As far as I know, there doesn’t
exist an official site of the program. At the beginning I had also had some
problems oparating it. Finally, I figured out, that If you want to twist
a face of the cube, then you have to try dragging (instead of just
clicking). As far as I know, the program and its author has nothing to do
with the forum I mentioned.

–
Andrzej Komisarski