Date: 15 September 1981 21:54-EDT From: Alan Bawden Subject: Editor's note to the last message. To: CUBE-LOVERS at MIT-MC I will look into collecting all of the relevant messages on God's number into one place. If you want to poke around in the archives yourself (please be carefull, and don't delete them again) I will remind you all that old cube-lovers mail is archived in the following places: MC:ALAN;CUBE MAIL0 ;oldest mail in foward order MC:ALAN;CUBE MAIL1 ;next oldest mail in foward order MC:ALAN;CUBE MAIL2 ;more of same MC:ALAN;CUBE MAIL ;recent mail in reverse order (I someone else wants to attempt the compilation, there is a better chance it will get done. Let me know and I will be happy to lend a hand.) Some of the seeming inconsistencies in the message included by Isaacs in his message are a result of the usual half versus quarter twist screw. The reason the writer can see 9 configurations after a single twist is because he has a different definition of a "single twist". I also am not sure, but I also think that the counting argument given here suffers from the some confusion Singmaster had when he computed a lower bound of 17 htw. I think, in fact, that a lower bound of 19 htw results if the argument is executed correctly (Singmaster corrected himself about this by the fourth edition, I think). Someone with a copy of Singmaster handy should look this up. The 41 move count for Thistlethwaite's algorithm is probably a half twist count given that it was reported by Singmaster.