Related papers: A variation on the Rubik's cube
It is well known that Rubik's cube has a set of group invariants. These values do not change if any layer was rotated, but they can change in case if some of the cubes were removed from the puzzle, mixed up and returned back. In this paper,…
We generalize the Rubik's cube, together with its group of configurations, to any abstract regular polytope. After discussing general aspects, we study the Rubik's simplex of arbitrary dimension and provide a complete description of the…
The Rubix Cube is a 3-dimensional single-player combination puzzle attracting attention in the reinforcement learning community. A Rubix Cube has six faces and twelve possible actions, leading to a small and unconstrained action space and a…
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…
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…
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
In this paper we give a mathematical model for a game that we call picture cube puzzle and investigate its properties. The central question is the number of moves required to solve the puzzle. A mathematical discussion is followed by the…
By using two different invariants for the Rubik's Magic puzzle, one of metric type, the other of topological type, we can dramatically reduce the universe of constructible configurations of the puzzle. Finding the set of actually…
We prove that the Rubik's cube group can be realized as a Galois group over the rationals.
The Rubik's Cube is perhaps the world's most famous and iconic puzzle, well-known to have a rich underlying mathematical structure (group theory). In this paper, we show that the Rubik's Cube also has a rich underlying algorithmic…
Scrambling the standard 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube corresponds to a random walk on a group containing approximately 43 quintillion elements. Viewing the random walk as a Markov chain, its mixing time determines the number of random moves required…
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…
We give a sharp bound for the automorphism group of a cubic simple graph with a given number of vertices. For each number of vertices we give an explicit graph attaining the bound, and prove its uniqueness in special cases.
A strict lower bound for the diameter of a symmetric graph is proposed, which is calculable with the order $n$ and other local parameters of the graph such as the degree $k\,(\geq 3)$, even girth $g\,(\geq 4)$, and number of $g$-cycles…
We introduce higher-dimensional cubical sliding puzzles that are inspired by the classical 15 Puzzle from the 1880s. In our puzzles, on a $d$-dimensional cube, a labeled token can be slid from one vertex to another if it is topologically…
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…
This is a survey on upper and lower bounds for finite group actions on bounded surfaces, 3-dimensional handlebodies and closed handles, handlebodies in arbitrary dimensions and finite graphs (the common feature of these objects is that all…
We say that a group G is a cube group if it is generated by a set S of involutions such that the corresponding Cayley graph Cay(G,S) is isomorphic to a cube. Equivalently, G is a cube group if it acts on a cube such that the action is…
Let $S$ be a connected graph which contains an induced path of $n-1$ vertices, where $n$ is the order of $S.$ We consider a puzzle on $S$. A configuration of the puzzle is simply an $n$-dimensional column vector over $\{0, 1\}$ with…
How many moves does it take to solve Rubik's Cube? Positions are known that require 20 moves, and it has already been shown that there are no positions that require 27 or more moves; this is a surprisingly large gap. This paper describes a…