Message #1795

From: Melinda Green <melinda@superliminal.com>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] Re: Magic 120-cell solved using MPUlt v1.06
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2011 13:24:44 -0700

I’m still somewhat shocked that several people have now solved this
beast. Not because it’s hard but because of the shear size of the thing!

If I ever attempted it (which I will not), I suspect that I would have
tried the layer-by-layer method you describe. In this way you expand
outward in an ever growing (3D) circle as you work your way around a big
volume of 4-space, and then bring it down around the far side. I imagine
that the hardest part will be to close it completely, and that terrifies
me too. What I wonder is whether this method will give the solver some
sense of the 4-space volume and how the puzzle separates this finite
space from the infinite "outside". Would any of our solvers like to
comment on this thought?

-Melinda

On 6/20/2011 12:57 PM, schuma wrote:
> Hi Andrey,
>
> I think your method is pretty interesting. Basically you need to first move a piece to the neighbors of the destination, and then correct it. The good thing about my method is that I can direct put a piece to the exact destination with the correct orientation at once. I don’t know overall which one is more efficient, especially for 3C or 4C pieces.
>
> Actually I just remembered that in the beginning I thought about using some methods similar to yours for 2C. I thought about solving a cell first and then expanding the solved region to more cells, which is more like a layer-by-layer approach. But I wanted to use 2C as an exercise and viability assessment for 3C and 4C. So eventually I chose to use the same method. After a few hours I felt the exercise was successful and enough. But at that time I couldn’t switch to the layer-by-layer approach any more, because the solved 2C pieces were scattered in the puzzle rather than concentrated in an area. Switching method means that I have to give up what I have solved. So I was actually stuck in that method.
>
> I wonder how long have you used now. I used 14.5 hours when all 2C pieces were solved. I bet your solution must be faster.
>
> Nan
>
> — In 4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com, "Andrey"<andreyastrelin@…> wrote:
>> Nan,
>> Congratulations with the solve!
>> So far I solved only some 2C pieces of this puzzles, but my method is the following:
>> I select some face, change its color to white (by shift-right click), then select some piece that has white sticker and is not at the white face. I highlight it (and always see where it’s now), and move it to any free place at white face. Then I sort and reorient pieces at white face (change some other faces to white for this).
>>
>> Andrey
>>
>>
>> — In 4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com, "schuma"<mananself@> wrote:
>>> Hi everyone,
>>>
>>> I just solved the mighty 120-cell using Andrey’s MPUlt. Note that the puzzle definition was provided in a separate file<http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/4D_Cubing/files/Andrey/MPUlt_puzzles.txt>. The log file can be found here<http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/4D_Cubing/files/Nan%20Ma/>.
>>>
>>> This solution took 54.5 hours and 78550 moves. I started this solution in the beginning of June. After solving 3%, I suspended it because I was not sure that I wanted to do it now. Nine days ago, however, I determined to solve it full throttle. So I solved 97% of the 120-cell in nine days (a whole week plus a weekend). Six hours per day on average. I am exhausted…
>>>
>>> Comparing Roice’s Magic 120-cell and Andrey’s MPUlt, each has pro and con. Please correct me if I’m wrong. To the best of my knowledge, Roice’s version has the piece-finding function, but no macros. Andrey’s version has macros, but no piece-finding function. I’m used to using macros so I chose Andrey’s version. But I have to figure out some ways to find the pieces. Shift+right click can only highlight one cell at a time, and is not very helpful in such a large puzzle.
>>>
>>> My piece-finding method is: changing all cells to black and then the 3~4 stickers on a piece to 3~4 colors. This way the destination of the piece is immediately visible. As a result, I spent more than half of my time changing the colors from black to color or from color to black.
>>>
>>> Phew…
>>>
>>> Nan
>>>