Message #1092

From: Melinda Green <melinda@superliminal.com>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] Impressions of solving of 3^7
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:03:36 -0700

Andrey,

This is a wonderful story! Thank you for the description of your
experience. It is very inspiring. Most of us will never get close to
having this experience so it is very nice to hear it from someone who
did. I especially like how you admit to panic at several points. We can
all understand how that feels and it is very encouraging to hear how
someone felt that and dealt with those feelings without denying them. It
gives us suggestions for how to deal with other seemingly intractable
problems in our lives.

Thanks again,
-Melinda

Andrey wrote:
> Some words about my feelings of 3^7 solving.
>
> I’ve started from inside, positioning of 2C. Turned off all pieces with 3 and more colors, looked at the picture (some cubes floating in the emptiness). First wave of panic: I see only 7 centers, how can I know where to move these cubes? Somehow build the star around one center, set it as "bottom" face and used opposite stickers of its 2C as indicators of invisible faces’ colors. Built second layer, started top one, met first (and only) parity problem… Ok, 240 or 260 twists and 2C are in place. Time to turn on 3C and start developing of macros…
> Turned on 3C. Panic: there is too much of them! And this single stickers - how should I find their faces? Ok, I have right-click :) Start with the middle layer, then think: what do I need first - finish other pieces of middle layer, or solve top and bottom 3C. Looks like finishing of 3C is better… Ok. Macro for reorientation of two top pieces… Macro for switching of top and bottom 3C (destroys bottom layer, but I keep it self-inverse, so two of them with twist of top face between will restore it again). On this level I found how to find places for cubies , learned how to use 2-click mode (use block with 7 visible stickers as meta-sticker for the face)… optimized the process of solution. No orientation problem of last piece… Ok.
> Time to stop and develop macros for all other steps. Couple of hours with pen and paper (7D pictures look very mysterious). Then to enter them in the puzzle. Turn on 4C… there is a lot of them! But there will be more 5C and 6C, so stop panic and start work. Find cube from the middle, turn middle layer to move place for it in the proper position, apply macro… 240 times. Then turn top and bottom cubies , then switch between top and bottom until all cubies will be in place. Meet first orientation problem: last 4C has wrong orientation (3-cycle). Think… solve.
> Started to solve 5C, quickly found that some 4C are not in place. What to do? Two ways: undo to the moment of disorder creation, or solve 4C and return to 5C. This time the latter method was better. But in the way I often saw results of my mistakes and had to return 10-20 macros back to resolve them.
> On 6C stage it was time to switch to 3-click mode and learn how to use it. And it was more and more difficult to check if the cube is solved on this level or some pieces need attention.
> 7C is more easy - there is no middle layer, but when I switch top and bottom pieces, I switch two stickers of them (for less rank it was like "mirroring" of a cubie). And 5 or 6 misplaced 6C in the way (some of them were hidden very well) . Catch them, solve, go ahead. Very difficult reorientation of last cubie (actually there was one more wrong oriented 7C, but I’ve missed it). And… ufff. Puzzle solved, so what? :) Think, what will be next…