Received: from DIAMOND.S4CC.Symbolics.COM (TCP 20024231403) by AI.AI.MIT.EDU 4 Nov 86 17:11:18 EST Received: from KOYAANISQATSI.S4CC.Symbolics.COM by DIAMOND.S4CC.Symbolics.COM via CHAOS with CHAOS-MAIL id 24817; Tue 4-Nov-86 17:06:25 EST Date: Tue, 4 Nov 86 17:06 EST From: David C. Plummer Subject: rubiks magic To: "CLSTR1::BECK" , cube-lovers In-Reply-To: The message of 10 Oct 86 09:32 EDT from "CLSTR1::BECK" Message-ID: <861104170610.5.DCP@KOYAANISQATSI.S4CC.Symbolics.COM> Rubik's Magic is available at "Games people play" near Harvard Square for a little under $15. As with Beck, it took me about 4 days to solve it. My resulting solution is strickingly simple (3 macros), but I took a lot of interesting paths to get there. I think it could have been made harder be repainting the back surface, but doing so may take it out of the reach of the general public. (It would require solving it to an intermediate configuration that doesn't look anywhere near solved, and then frob it again.) It's a good puzzle for playing with and relieving the fidgets. Mathematically it isn't very interesting, nor are there any "pretty patterns" other than solved1 and solved2.