Related papers: Twenty-Five Moves Suffice for Rubik's Cube
In this paper, we prove that optimally solving an $n \times n \times n$ Rubik's Cube is NP-complete by reducing from the Hamiltonian Cycle problem in square grid graphs. This improves the previous result that optimally solving an $n \times…
In this paper we give a upper bound of 40 on Rubik's cube group. The previously known upper bound has been 42 since 1995. In order to prove our claim we use computational methods. The program used is GAP computer algebra. Further more we…
Every smooth cubic plane curve has 9 flex points and 27 sextatic points. We study the following question asked by Farb: Is it true that the known algebraic structures give all the possible ways to continuously choose $n$ distinct points on…
A Sudoku puzzle often has a regular pattern in the arrangement of initial digits and it is typically made solvable with known solving techniques, called strategies. In this paper, we consider the problem of generating such Sudoku instances.…
We develop infinitary analogues of the $N\times N\times N$ Rubik's cube. We'll be pushed to consider the possibility of transfinitely many twists and the foremost question we shall study is whether or not all infinite scrambles are…
We consider a puzzle such that a set of colored cubes is given as an instance. Each cube has unit length on each edge and its surface is colored so that what we call the Surface Color Condition is satisfied. Given a palette of six colors,…
The core mechanical system is built around three stepper motors for physical manipulation, a microcontroller for hardware control, a camera and YOLO detection model for real-time cube state detection. A significant software component is the…
The topological (resp. geodesic) complexity of a topological (resp. metric) space is roughly the smallest number of continuous rules required to choose paths (resp. shortest paths) between any points of the space. We prove that the geodesic…
We consider the problem of determining the minimum number of moves needed to solve a certain one-dimensional peg puzzle. Let N be a positive integer. The puzzle apparatus consists of a block with a single row of 2N+1 equally spaced holes…
A great number of robotics applications demand the rearrangement of many mobile objects, e.g., organizing products on shelves, shuffling containers at shipping ports, reconfiguring fleets of mobile robots, and so on. To boost the throughput…
It has been shown that any 9 by 9 Sudoku puzzle must contain at least 17 clues to have a unique solution. This paper investigates the more specific question: given a particular completed Sudoku grid, what is the minimum number of clues in…
The paper proposes a novel machine learning-based approach to the pathfinding problem on extremely large graphs. This method leverages diffusion distance estimation via a neural network and uses beam search for pathfinding. We demonstrate…
We prove a lower and an upper bound on the number of block moves necessary to sort a permutation. We put our results in contrast with existing results on sorting by block transpositions, and raise some open questions.
We describe in details the nxnxn Rubik's Cube, namely a Rubik's Cube with n rotating slices in each face. Then we state and prove the "first law of Cubology", i.e. the solvability criterion, for it
The 15 puzzle is a classic reconfiguration puzzle with fifteen uniquely labeled unit squares within a $4 \times 4$ board in which the goal is to slide the squares (without ever overlapping) into a target configuration. By generalizing the…
The first 2x2x2 twisty cube was created as a demonstration tool by Erno Rubik in 1974 to help his students understand the complexity of space and the movements in 3D. He fabricated a novel 3x3x3 mechanism where the 26 cubies were turning,…
In this paper we demonstrate a method for counting the number of solutions to various logic puzzles. Specifically, we remove all of the "clues" from the puzzle which help the solver to a unique solution, and instead start from an empty…
We introduce a new family of one-player games, involving the movement of coins from one configuration to another. Moves are restricted so that a coin can be placed only in a position that is adjacent to at least two other coins. The goal of…
Let C be a smooth cubic curve in the complex projective plane. We show that for every positive integer k, there are only finite number of rational curves of degree k each intersects the cubic C at exactly one point. The number of such…
The Rubik's cube was invented in 1974 by Erno Rubik, who had no idea of the incredible popularity and mathematical fascinations his toy would bring. Through the years of study on the mathematical properties of the cube, the Rubik's Cube…