Message #3627

From: Eduard Baumann <ed.baumann@bluewin.ch>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] Physical 4D puzzle achieved
Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2017 12:43:48 +0100

Wow!!

Your baby holy grail is awesome!

It seems to me that you are still exploring the possible moves and twists.

Have you already a correspondence for each move and each twist?

I would appreciate very much a halfed screen where you see on one side the magnetic move or twist and on the other side the corresponding move or twist on the virtual 2x2x2x2 in a programm like MPUlt.

Congratulations !!

Best regards
Ed

—– Original Message —–
From: Melinda Green melinda@superliminal.com [4D_Cubing]
To: MagicCube4D
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2017 6:38 AM
Subject: [MC4D] Physical 4D puzzle achieved

Dear cubists,

I am excited to announce that I’ve been able to implement a working 2^4 in the real world! It uses a design I had described a little over a year ago. The key was a clever arrangement of magnets that the Mathologer came up with for implementing a 2^3 puzzle. I realized that it could be extended to give me a mechanism to support my design. I then prototyped it and it works quite well. Here is a quick video I made just for you:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asx653BGDWA

Please do not share this link because it is unpublished and I intend to delete and replace it with a proper video. It is mainly meant for getting your feedback and advice. Please reply here, or privately to melinda@superliminal.com if you’re shy. Feel free to comment on all aspects of the video, and not just on the mathematics. For instance, feel free to comment on the video and audio quality, or anything else that strikes you.

Many of us have dreamed about such a puzzle for a long time and it’s become something of a holy grail. It’s always seemed almost impossible to create any sort of 4D puzzle in the real world, but there was never any clear reason why it couldn’t be done. The real holy grail would be a physical 3^4, so maybe this is just the baby grail. Of course maybe this design can be extended to implement a 3^4. What do you think?

Happy puzzling!
-Melinda