From mouse@collatz.mcrcim.mcgill.edu Sat Jan 15 12:33:29 1994 Return-Path: Received: from Collatz.McRCIM.McGill.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for /com/archive/cube-lovers id AA10873; Sat, 15 Jan 94 12:33:29 EST Received: from localhost (root@localhost) by 2409 on Collatz.McRCIM.McGill.EDU (8.6.4 Mouse 1.0) id MAA02409 for cube-lovers@ai.mit.edu; Sat, 15 Jan 1994 12:33:21 -0500 Date: Sat, 15 Jan 1994 12:33:21 -0500 From: der Mouse Message-Id: <199401151733.MAA02409@Collatz.McRCIM.McGill.EDU> To: cube-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: Higher Order Cubes >> A well lubed 4x4x4 cube is still relatively easy to physically >> manipulate. As der Mouse suggests, it is arguably the largest >> interesting cube from a solver's point of view. Probably true; it's the largest cube that actually offers new challenges. However, bigger cubes are better in that they offer more variety for making pretty patterns. :-) >> Once one starts actually twisting with a 5x5x5 cube, the physical >> problems become more severe, e.g. the stickers come off easier, >> turning the slice you want to is more of a challenge, etc. > This is interesting, because it's almost exactly the opposite of my > experience. > The problem seems to be the difference between the internal > mechanisms of the odd- and even- ordered cubes. This brings up an interesting point. Perhaps it would be possible to build a 4-Cube that was internally a 5-Cube but for which the middle slice was not actually visible on the surface? Or a 2-Cube that's internally a 3-Cube? I wonder if it might make for smoother-turning cubes. > [O]f the four 4X's I've owned, only one was really useable; two were > so stiff they were very difficult to turn (even with lubrication) and > one was so loose that it never lasted more than about 20 minutes > before dissolving into a pile of cubelets [...]. I have owned only one 4-Cube, and it's been long enough since I knew where it was that I don't recall how easy it was to turn. I now have two 3-Cubes and a 5-Cube. One of the 3-Cubes is a joy to turn; it's lubed enough that it turns readily and easily, even when the turn has a good deal of skew to correct, but it's not so loose that it turns when I don't want it to. (The other 3-Cube is (a) missing one center cubie face and (b) much more difficult to turn.) The 5-Cube (one of the recent Ishi Press cubes, btw) is mechanically quite good, though the orange stickers did tend to come off (no other color did, and contact cement worked just fine for putting them back on). Not as good as my good 3-Cube, though. I've wondered whether it would be possible to build higher-order cubes. The corners of the 5-Cube still catch by a respectable amount as the face turns, but by little enough that it makes me wonder if the 6-Cube or 7-Cube is actually feasible. (Oh, for a really good force-reflecting dataglove...then such a thing could be done virtually with no problem at all!) der Mouse mouse@collatz.mcrcim.mcgill.edu