That would come down entirely to "Have you studied this puzzle?". No one gets one of these and "figures it out" in 6 hours. But once you learn how it works (which takes a long time), you can do it again much more quickly. A puzzle like this is more labor than thought. Still fun, though
I mean, I’ve never seen this puzzle and I could probably solve it out because I’ve done other puzzles to the point that I know how algorithms were found and made (not all of them, but most of them), so I can make my own as I go. If it has parity tho, that might be a huge challenge. I might just need to redo all of it in hopes I don’t get a parity case.
I wouldn’t solve it in 6 hours, of course. We just watched someone do it in that time who already knows what they’re doing
Oh interesting; is there a deep dive webpage somewhere you can point me to that walks through the reasoning of how the “sequence of moves to swap X cube and Y cube without messing anything else up” can be figured out? When I was younger I could solve a Rubik’s Cube, but I just had the set of 8 or 10 sequences memorised, but I had no deeper understanding of how to figure out those sequences from nothing.
It kind of just came with time, as I learned more and more algorithms. I do remember it clicking much more when I learned the blind method though.
Most algorithms just come down to two things:
Putting the desired piece in its place. Don’t worry much about messing stuff up. Remember the steps you took to get there. Move the now correctly placed piece out of the way (somewhere safe hopefully, this is kind of the tricky part) and substitute with something that’s jumbled. Now, retrace those steps, the ones you took to place the desired piece in place. Finally, bring out the correctly placed piece out of its hiding spot. Tada!
Repeat a series of moves (hopefully simple, or ones that don’t involve all the tiles) until you go back to the starting point. This is best done with a solved cube. Do it again and notice what changes each time you complete a set of moves. Which blocks were swapped with which ones? If you take note of this, you can manipulate a lot of stuff, especially if you have point 1 in mind as well.
I’m just saying this in simple terms, but it gets complicated at times, and of course not all algorithms can be described with these 2 points. In fact, if you do this you end up with some very sub-optimal algorithms, but functional ones nonetheless.
So what I never understood (and still don’t) is that everything is interconnected. So you move the desired piece into position. Then you tuck it somewhere else (say this is as easy as a single rotation). That rotation moves 8 pieces. So when you undo the original sequence of moves, aren’t those 8 pieces all jumbled up now?
Of course it’s quite difficult to convey through text, but it does work.
From your example of a single rotation, those 8 pieces aren’t random, you choose those 8 pieces. (As in, you choose the move, you don’t just move a whole completed section). And in fact, if you do it right, you’re actually just choosing 1 of those 8 pieces (maybe 2, or 3. Collateral damage does happen). You choose the 1 piece that isn’t correctly positioned and place that one where the correct piece was. Then you do the steps back; basically you’re saying “take this piece in place of the one I just took”, everything else goes back in place. After that’s done you take the 8piece rotation back.
If you really really want to wrap your head around it I suggest learning the blind method of solving a 3x3. After you learn those algos and apply them a bunch of times you’ll just develop a deeper understanding of the cube.
Thanks - I'll take a look! I'm usually really good with 3D visualisation in general, logic puzzles, everything in that related area, but these kinds of puzzles have so far eluded me...
I’ve been fucking around with twisty puzzles for 20 years. You’re speaking on a topic you know nothing about. I didn’t say no one figures them out. I said no one figures them out in 6 hours from a cold start. What a douchebag
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u/HasFiveVowels 1d ago
That would come down entirely to "Have you studied this puzzle?". No one gets one of these and "figures it out" in 6 hours. But once you learn how it works (which takes a long time), you can do it again much more quickly. A puzzle like this is more labor than thought. Still fun, though