From cube-lovers-errors@curry.epilogue.com Mon Jul 1 00:53:25 1996 Return-Path: cube-lovers-errors@curry.epilogue.com Received: from curry.epilogue.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by curry.epilogue.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA24630 for ; Mon, 1 Jul 1996 00:53:24 -0400 Precedence: bulk Errors-To: cube-lovers-errors@curry.epilogue.com Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 21:05:13 -0300 From: FERNANDO VON REICHENBACH Message-Id: <199607010005.VAA31570@cnea.edu.ar> To: Cube-Lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Counting moves My name is Isidro Costantini, I'm a cube lover since '81. I used to have some cube meetings here in Buenos Aires and we have some interesting formulas. We disserted about how to count cube moves, and finally decided that any double move (ie: R2) are TWO moves instead of one. This was because there are a lot of even/odd properties when you count moves in that way. I'm quite surprised that when I checked some pages and moves aren't count in that way. For example, to flip two edges in it's place will always take an even number of moves (14) (I'll put the shortest formula we have in parenthesis) (always counting X2 as two moves) Any 3 edges xchg (12) or Flip 2 corners (14) or Xchg 3 corners (8) is even. Any [Xchg 2 corners And Xchg 2 edges] is always odd (ie: R1 U3 L1 U2 R3 U1 R1 U2 R3 L3 U1 = 13 counting U2 as two) I have a collection of all the combinations of these nonFliping corner/edges exchange ODD formulas in one face, some of them are of 17 or more movements and I wonder if there are any better than we did. ( Where's a place to check for those formulas? ) Another good example is (xchg 3 edges,noFlip) (12) R2 U1 F1 B3 R2 F3 B1 U1 R2 (9 moves using your way of counting) and another equivalent: B3 U3 R3 U1 R1 B1 followed by F1 R1 U1 R3 U3 F3 (6+6 moves, same position) Another way of counting could be adding the suffix (1,2 or 3) (counting only clockwise moves) which would preserve parity as well. I would be pleased if some one can tell me about this subject.