Message #28

From: David Vanderschel <DvdS@Austin.RR.com>
Subject: Fwd: Re: [MC4D] #17
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2003 20:28:52 -0000

Date: Wed Jun 25, 2003 5:22 pm

— In MC4D@yahoogroups.com, Melinda Green <melinda@s…> wrote:
hello andy,

congratulations and welcome.

> […] I noticed there isn’t a list for 2x2x2x2, maybe I could make
#1 for
> that?!
> Hmmmmm, I assume it’s just considered too "easy" for a list. :-)

don did implement the 2^4 at one point. it was a bit of an oddball
because the UI
had to work differently from the other puzzles. the way it worked was
that it
depended upon which 2D face of the sticker you clicked on, and
twisted in that
plane. i don’t remember what became of that version though.

another interesting puzzle was suggested on the slashdot discussions
on the 4D
cube recently. that is, the 3^2. with little thought it’s obvious how
it should
work. here’s my idea. if it looks crappy you’ll need to view with a
fixed width
font:

___________________
|\__R__|__R__|__R__ /|
| | | | | |
|G| 1 | 2 | 3 |B|
|_|____|_____|_____|_|
| | | | | |
|G| 4 | 5 | 6 |B|
|_|____|_____|_____|_|
| | | | | |
|G| 7 | 8 | 9 |B|
| |____|_____|_____| |
|/__Y__|__Y__|__Y___\|

paint the 4 outside edges a different color.
note that the corner buttons (1, 3, 7, 9)
have 2 colors, the edge middle buttons (2, 4, 6, 8)
have 1 color, and the middle button (5) has none and is not really
part of the
puzzle.
there are 4 possible ways to twist this puzzle:
swap buttons 1 and 3,
swap buttons 1 and 7,
swap buttons 3 and 9,
swap buttons 7 and 9.
i’m finding it very difficult to make myself do any programming right
now but i’m
sure this should be rather simple. it’d be fun to animate the
twisting by
scrunching the row or column into a line and then back out into the
twisted
position. that would make it appear as if the selected row or column
was rotating
through the 3D dimension. (woo, spooky!) all that’s needed is to
scale down to 0
and then back with the stickers reversed. i don’t know flash, but
that might
provide an even easier platform for this than java.

one fun thing that falls out of it is that we wouldn’t need an
exploded view
since we can easily visualize the entire puzzle in it’s natural
configuration.
it’d also be a natural element to add to abbot’s "flatland" as it’s
easy to
imagine how this puzzle would warp the mind of a flatlander
attempting to solve
it.

i’m not sure how you’d build a physical version but it should be
quite possible
and might even be a fun introductory puzzle for children.

-melinda
— End forwarded message —