Message #696

From: Melinda Green <melinda@superliminal.com>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] Re: 3^4 parity problems
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:51:11 -0700

This brings up a question that I’ve been struggling with and have yet to
make up my mind about which is whether it should be considered to be
fair for people to use trial-and-error to find starting configurations
that happen to avoid particular problems leading to shortest solutions.
We decided that it made sense to use standard scrambles in speed solving
but I don’t think we’ve ever addressed the problem for shortest
solutions. Opinions?

On a lighter note, here’s a video of what must be the world’s fastest
solution of the 1x1x1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYf1nKTr7ZQ
0.13 seconds! Wow!!

-Melinda

matthewsheerin wrote:
>
>
> I certainly know how you feel, I had the same problem doing a fewest
> moves solve on the 2^4. I could not find a very short solution for it
> (relative to the required solve length) so I did trial and error until
> I chanced upon a solution without the problem. If you are interested,
> I have just created a save file with a 22 move solution (the best I
> can manage I think) which I will now attempt to upload to the site for
> you to find.
>
> I intend to try a fewest move solve on the 3^4 and 4^4 eventually,
> after setting the records on the other two puzzles, but for now I wish
> you good luck! :)
>
> Happy hypercubing,
> Matthew
>
>