Rubiks cube family... expanding!

I have been friends with this wonderful puzzle game since mid 1999. During those days this simple fact, that it can be rotated in all 3 directions without breaking, has made me so fascinated towards this game. I remember how desperately I've played with this on the very first day. It took almost a month for me to completely solve this. Huh, what a joy that I've felt when I've completely solved this. Mathematically, the total permutations of a solvable (3×3×3) original cube is given by: or 43 quintillion, in short. Highly unimaginable to list all those configurations by hand. The facts and figures of this game are always interesting. When I read that there are people who can solve this game just in 7.08 seconds I couldn't believe it. There is an extensive mathematical research that has taken place on how to solve Rubik's cube. It was found that any random configuration of the cube can be solved in just 26 steps. You can read the article here, quite mathlicated though! Well... that's just the tip an iceberg.

One fine day, when I was browsing for information on Rubik's cube, I came to know that there are 4X4X4 and 5X5X5 versions are available with fully functional models. Recently I have seen videos of 7X7X7 and 9X9X9 version of the game in fully functional form. What an amazing design. Just try to imagine its internal design. You'll surely come out with an expression of wow.

No... that's not all of it. There are softwares available to play the game online. If you are too bored and have already solved the smaller versions like say 9X9X9 manually, you can play the higher versions virtually. I was dumbstruck to see the videos of how people have solved up to 100X100X100. Checkout here to see how 20X20X20 is solved.

No... that's not all of it yet! There is a whole family of twisty games which come in various shapes (see the video of dodecahedron here, and read about Pyraminx here), sizes and complexities. I feel like buying all of those and try solving one by one! Huh, too high an ambition for an amateur like me!

Bottom line is... we humans, though very lazy, though very arrogant, though very egoistic and blah blah blah, are blessed with this powerful brute force. I guess, that's what is making us understand this mother nature step by step. If nature is not this beautiful and complicated, all our research efforts, and life in general, will lack motivation.

Two more friends!!!

i've got two more friends... one is rubik's revenge and the other is professor's cube... while it took one month for me to solve rubik's cube (3X3), it is taking days just to do two colors on professor's cube...

important thing to note here is that i didn't buy any of these two... professor's cube is sent by Praphul after seeing my post on rubik's revenge... it's a nice feeling to know that there are people who are willing to spend money for somebody whom they don't even know personally... thanks a lot Mr.Praphul... i owe you a treat... not just for the professor's cube, but also for those long philosophical discussions through mails... and for proving that money doesn't matter but the intentions do matter!!!

rubik's revenge is sent by deepika, my friend and philosopher... thanks a lot buddy! you made my hours busy with this cute gift!!! let me see how many days i will take to solve these things :-)

a puzzle that haunted me!!!

here is a puzzle that haunted me for a while today... finally, i solved it after struggling for a couple of hours... try this out!!! if you get the solution, you are intelligent... if you don't get it and seriously interested in knowing the solution, mail me for the same... otherwise, you can wait for few days so that i will post the solution too!!!

here it goes: there are twelve balls looking identical (shape, size and color)... but, only one of them is weighing differently (it is not given whether lighter or heavier than the rest)... the puzzle is to find that odd one using a simple balance (without any weights) for only three times!!! also, you should be able to tell whether the odd one is lighter or heavier than the rest!!!

just for fun, i am giving you a c-program below to check whether your logic is correct or not!!! make sure that you change those square brackets to include header files to angular brackets... try it... all the best!

the program

#include[stdlib.h]
#include[math.h]
#include[ctype.h]
#include[stdio.h]
void balance(int, int []);
main()
{
int V[13];
int n,i,k;
int choice,correct,weight,weighed;
float dummy;

for(i=1;i<=12;i++) V[i]=3;
srand(time(NULL));
dummy=rand();
correct=(int)((dummy/RAND_MAX)*12)+1;
dummy=(float)rand()/RAND_MAX;
if(dummy<=0.5) { V[correct]=V[correct]-2; weight=0;}
else { V[correct]=V[correct]+2; weight=1;}
printf("program to find odd man out from a group of 12\n");
printf("you are allowed to use the balance for 3 times\n");
for(k=1;k<=3;k++) { printf("\nyour chance number %d\n",k);
err1: printf("enter the number of objects in each plate:");
scanf("%d",&n);
if(n>6) {printf("\ninvalid choice\n");goto err1;}
else
balance(n,V);
}
printf("\n\nenter the index of odd man:");
scanf("%d",&choice);
if(choice==correct)
{
printf("\nis it heavier or lighter?");
err2: printf("\n1:heavier\t\t0:lighter");
scanf("%d",&weighed);
if((weighed!=0)&&(weighed!=1))
{ printf("\ninvalid choice!"); goto err2;}
if(weighed==weight)
printf("\n\ncongrats! your logic is correct");
else printf("\n\noops! you got it wrong!");
}
else printf("\n\noops! you got it wrong!");
}

void balance(int n,int V[])
{
int i,sumL,sumR,L[6],R[6];
sumL=sumR=0;
for(i=1;i<=n;i++)
{
printf("\nenter L[%d]:",i);
scanf("%d",&L[i]); sumL=sumL+V[L[i]];
}
for(i=1;i<=n;i++)
{
printf("\nenter R[%d]:",i);
scanf("%d",&R[i]); sumR=sumR+V[R[i]];
}
if(sumL==sumR) printf("both sides equal\n");
else if(sumL > sumR) printf("left pan heavier\n");
else printf("right pan heavier");
}

rubik's revenge!!!

since long, i was having fun solving rubik's cube... it is always fun to kill time trying to solve it in the minimum possible time... it took one month for me to understand the logic by myself, and to solve it for the first time... so far, my best solution time is 2minutes 15seconds... the world record is 10.48 seconds!!! amazing enough to blink our eyes, right??? recently, when i was watching Will Smith's new movie The pursuit of happyness, i felt sudden love for my good old game... incidentally, i came to know that there are extended versions of the same game with 4x4x4 (Rubik's revenge) and 5x5x5 (Professor's cube)... just for a change, i wanted to try the next level, the Rubik's revenge, and tried to find it in Bangalore... after 4 or 5 hours of futile search in all the leading shopping malls and toy stores, i tried to buy it online... but, no seller is ready to ship it to India... can somebody help me in this regard?

Updates: I have finally solved Rubiks revenge yesterday (24th April 2011). And, the latest price of this, on ebay, is around 19 dollars.