Message #4137
From: Eduard Baumann <ed.baumann@bluewin.ch>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] Notation and turn metrics for the 2x2x2x2
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2018 10:27:23 +0200
More pictures for the notation for 2x2x2x2
Best regards
Ed
—– Original Message —–
From: Melinda Green melinda@superliminal.com [4D_Cubing]
To: 4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2018 4:14 AM
Subject: Re: [MC4D] Notation and turn metrics for the 2x2x2x2
This all sounds great to me. Comments in-line.
On 9/13/2018 2:19 PM, Andrew Farkas ajfarkas12@gmail.com [4D_Cubing] wrote:
Hey everyone!
I’ve been working on the random-state scrambler/solver and discussing things with Marc over the past few days, and I’ve come up with some things that I think are worth sharing.
Notation
I’ve yet to see a proper compendium of notation for the 2^4, so here’s my proposal for moves in the horizontal orientation:
a.. A face R, L, I, or O, followed by one of the following:
a.. Any letter r, l, u, d, f, b, x, y, z (plus an optional ' or 2).
I get the x,y,z moves but what do the r,l,u,d,f,b moves mean? For instance I get Rz but not Ru.
a.. A pair of square brackets containing any sequence of 3D moves that are valid on a 2x2x2.
a.. Most of the time, of course, these moves should be 0-mod-4.
a.. The moves U2, D2, F2, and B2.
b.. The full puzzle rotations x, x', x2, y2, and z2. <br>
c.. The stacking moves M, M', M2, E, and S. <br>
a.. M moves the right endcap over to the left of the puzzle; M' does the opposite, and M2 swaps the left and right halves of the puzzle. <br>
b.. E swaps the top and bottom halves of the puzzle. <br>
c.. S swaps the front and back halves of the puzzle.
Sounds fine though where did the names M, E, and S come from? I probably just missed it, but I need mnemonics for them. Or maybe something a little more self-descriptive might help, like Sd where S means "Stack" and ‘d’ is the direction x, y, or z. Or following your ‘clam’ suggestion, they could be x stack, y’ stack, etc.
a.. z clam and z’ clam.
a.. z clam is a z rotation followed by a clamshell move.
b.. z’ clam is a z’ rotation followed by a clamshell move.
c.. z clam and z’ clam are inverses.
a.. Parentheses can be used for grouping, and numbers can follow parentheses to repeat a sequence.
b.. Commutator notation is allowed when useful.
The use of lowercase letters in moves like Rr may be controversial; if they are deemed confusing, R[R] could be encouraged instead.
Here’s an equivalent of Melinda’s original gyro sequence in this notation:
M E z’ clam (x z’ clam)2
It’s nice that you included the clamshell move but does it belong here since we decided to not call it canonical? Maybe we could use some form of macro notation for naming sequences built from canonical moves and previously defined sequences. For instance perhaps I could define
let clam = R2 U2 R2
and then use clam and clam’ wherever I like. Someone following my sequences would be free to use the above canonical moves or perform the clamshell move as a shortcut since the results are identical. I could then define my gyro as
let gyro = M E clam (x clam')2
And of course if someone prefers a different gyro move they can just use that since again the results are identical. Or is this all just overkill?
I’ll briefly digress to discuss a WCA-inspired "standard orientation" that Marc and I have been using. WCA regulations state that white face should be on top (Y axis) and the green face should be on the front (Z axis). On a standard NxNxN, this will result in the red face on the right (X axis). […]
Makes sense.
Metric
As for counting numbers of moves, I’d like to propose the "snap" metric. Each separation and reattachment of pieces is a single move.. This can be very dependent on how a move is executed, but I think it makes the most sense for the purpose of solving and speedsolving.
A single move like Iy could be executed in three snaps as M Ry M’ or in just two snaps by rearranging the right and left endcaps around the I layer.. A sequence like x’ Rz Lz’ M2 may seem like a lot of moves, but it can be executed in one snap. (The x’ is actually zero snaps, regardless of context.) The sequence z’ clam is two snaps, while the equivalent Rx2 U2 (R[x2 y’] Ly) is three snaps. Ix can be executed as three snaps with M Rx M’, two snaps with Rr Ll’ x’, or one snap by holding the endcaps with one hand and rotating the I layer with the other. (In an actual solve, the two-snap method is probably fastest.) While Rr is pretty clearly one snap, Ru could be executed in two snaps (by separating the left and right halves, performing Ru, and then reattaching them) or one snap (by removing the four pieces of Ru directly, rotating them, and replacing them).
I like the snap metric a lot for quantifying the amount of work or physical complexity of some sequence. I don’t know if it makes sense to use for fewest-moves contests for example, but it could be very helpful for comparing and streamlining algorithms.
-Melinda