Message #1411

From: Roice Nelson <roice3@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] The 3 slice pentachoron
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 11:43:40 -0600

Hi Eduard,

Yep, I haven’t yet seen any published guide for this puzzle. What I’ve
thought would be neat is if the superliminal wiki could evolve into a guide,
in addition to tracking all the user solves. So each puzzle page
(this one<http://wiki.superliminal.com/wiki/Simplex>for the thrice
sliced simplex) would also have a "sequence library" section,
which could be referenced by people attempting to do a solve. I’m not sure
the best format for these sequence libraries. Maybe it could start out as
just a macro file, but written out descriptions could also be included and
would be nice. A short overview of how to attack the puzzle would be useful
as well, like you’ve written out below. I imagine the guides as much more
bare boned than the 3^4 solution - more of a set of guideposts for more
experienced puzzle explorers. Anyway, if you felt motivated to do so, I’d
encourage you to share the sequences you’ve uncovered in the wiki.

(Though I’ve come to no conclusions, I’ve been wondering a little lately if
there might be a better way to organize the rich repository of knowledge
that is our group’s email history, so people could quickly find information
they are interested in. It seems something like the above would be a step
in the right direction.)

All the best,
Roice

On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 9:33 AM, Eduard <baumann@mcnet.ch> wrote:

>
>
> I asked in this forum for instructions for the pentachoron (3 slices).
>
> Since I got no reaction I think that these instructions do not exist. At
> least not for a layered solution (as Roice’s for the magic cube). This is
> not astonishing because the pentachoron beeing smaller (only 5 cells
> compared with the 8 cells of the magic cube) seems to be more ensnared.
> Reading (watching, playing) the log files from R.Durka I can’t learn
> anything. Does he use computer aid?
>
> We can distinguish the following technics (1) fully by hand, (2) by hand
> and macros, (3) with heavy computer aid. I’m doing (2).
>
> Without any macros and commutators you can do the 5 faces with 4
> differently colored octahedra. Then the 5 fourcolored corners can be done
> with slice 3 twists only.
> After that you have the hard core of the job to be done: the 10
> threecolored edges. For the moment I have established a 3-cycles across an
> edge, a 3-cycle in a face and a 3-cycle around a vertex. I have also a
> concept for a sequence which *mirrors* two edges in their place. I need
> also a sequence to *turn* two edges in their place. All these sequences
> work with slice 2 twists of course.
>
>