From cube-lovers-errors@mc.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jul 22 13:23:38 1999 Return-Path: Received: from sun28.aic.nrl.navy.mil (sun28.aic.nrl.navy.mil [132.250.84.38]) by mc.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1a/8.9.1-mod) with SMTP id NAA28308 for ; Thu, 22 Jul 1999 13:23:37 -0400 (EDT) Precedence: bulk Errors-To: cube-lovers-errors@mc.lcs.mit.edu Message-Id: <006001bed45e$d4429420$1b4b43cf@compaq> From: "Paul Hanna" Reply-To: phanna@gbonline.com To: Subject: cube computer solutions using procedural languages Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 11:24:45 -0500 Have any of you done any work on solving the cube with computer programs using procedural languages such as C? I've seen books on the manual methods of solving the cube (with the cube in your hand) such as David Singmaster's texts but haven't seen any publications regarding computer solutions using procedural languages. Do you have any suggestions you can pass my way? I am a good programmer but not a cube solution expert. I am just a novice at best when it comes to cube algorithms and efficient cube solutions. I am attempting to work on a project involving solving the cube programmatically and also planning on doing analysis/comparisons of various algorithms to solve it. Any help, suggested methods, advice, tables, algorithms, etc. that you may be able to provide me would be very greatly appreciated. I can think of a number of ways to approach this task but would also like some of your folks expertise as well. I am having trouble getting going in the right direction. Also what is the theoretical least number of plane movements that are required to solve the cube no matter what its configuration and why? You can reply directly to me. Thanks in advance, Paul Hanna Green Bay, WI phanna@gbonline.com [Moderator's note: There's certainly a lot in the archives (ftp://ftp.ai.mit.edu/pub/cube-lovers/) on the topics of efficient and optimal programmatic solutions and upper and lower bounds. Unfortunately, it's not indexed. --Dan]