Message #3645

From: Melinda Green <melinda@superliminal.com>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] Re: Physical 4D puzzle achieved
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2017 14:53:43 -0800

In my last message I mentioned that it appears that moving both end caps to opposite sides (as opposed to "ends") works. That looks to be a 90 degree rotation of the central black face, and exchanges red-blue stickers with other colors. Can someone confirm or refute that? What surprises me is just how scrambled the puzzle looks after just one of these moves. It clearly makes the puzzle much more difficult. It also suggests that to solve it, you’ll probably need to frequently examine the interior. If so, perhaps the ultimate version would involve transparent materials such as colored glass, or perhaps clear cubes with four colored corners. It also makes the current bandaged version look not so bad. I suspect a natural solution would first position and orient all the red and blue stickers and then solve the bandaged form.

-Melinda

On 2/12/2017 12:44 PM, damienturtle@hotmail.co.uk [4D_Cubing] wrote:
>
>
> I’ve looked at this a little more today, and have a correction to make to my previous message.
>
> >First of all, I think that taking a 2x2x1 block from one end and putting at the other end is a valid maneuver, a 4D rotation which will allow blue/red pieces to mix with other colours and to fully scramble the 2^4.
>
> Nope, sadly it is not quite that simple. I’m now convinced that there is no simple maneuver which will do a 4D rotation to put some other pair of colours in place of blue/red, or a twist which mixes red/blue stickers with other colours. There are of course ways to achieve these, but they require several steps and I’m not yet sure what the easiest/shortest one would be, or how best to describe any such maneuver. I’ll post an update if I find a good answer, unless someone else figures it out first.
>
> Matt