$n \times n \times n$ Rubik's Cubes and God's Number
Combinatorics
2021-12-17 v1
Abstract
The Rubik's Cube is the most popular puzzle in the world. Two of its studied aspects are God's Number, the minimum number of turns necessary to solve any state, and the first law of cubology, a solvability criterion. We modify previous statements of the first law of cubology for Rubik's Cubes, and prove necessary and sufficient solvability conditions. We compute the order of the Rubik's Cube group and the number of distinct configurations of the Rubik's Cube. Finally, we derive a lower bound for God's Number using the group theoretical results and a counting argument.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2112.08602,
title = {$n \times n \times n$ Rubik's Cubes and God's Number},
author = {Daniel Salkinder},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2112.08602},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
23 pages, 9 figures