4x4 Resources

[JimCube]

Hey guys, I'm interested in 4x4 but I couldn't find in depth resources. Yau method tutorials are hard to come by. Everything I see talks about parity and dedges and all these stuff I don't understand. Any nice resources? And I don't want to waste my time on beginner methods and other methods. I just want a good Yau tutorial. thanks.-jim

 

[tx789]

Solving Centres and Edges isn't hard. A beginner method for 4x4 doesn't really exist. Here's a video:

 

[bcube]

Hi Jim,

"Everything I see talks about parity and dedges and all these stuff I don't understand."

Not exactly what you want (it tells nothing about the Yau method), but recently I wrote an article about a parity: http://hlavolam.maweb.eu/parity-problem.

Feel free to ask if something is still not clear to you after reading it, or feel free to search for other resources on the internet if you want to understand parity.

 

[mark49152]

Everything I see talks about parity and dedges and all these stuff I don't understand. .... And I don't want to waste my time on beginner methods and other methods. I just want a good Yau tutorial.

Maybe you should study and understand the puzzle before deciding which solving method works best for you?

 

[JimCube]

Hi Jim,

"Everything I see talks about parity and dedges and all these stuff I don't understand."

Not exactly what you want (it tells nothing about the Yau method), but recently I wrote an article about a parity: http://hlavolam.maweb.eu/parity-problem.

Feel free to ask if something is still not clear to you after reading it, or feel free to search for other resources on the internet if you want to understand parity.

Thanks a bunch!
Edit: i didnt understand anything in that link.

 

[JimCube]

Maybe you should study and understand the puzzle before deciding which solving method works best for you?

I will do that. I just wanted to try yau first. I don't even have a 4x4 yet. Lol. I'm just looking ahead of time.

 

[JimCube]

Solving Centres and Edges isn't hard. A beginner method for 4x4 doesn't really exist. Here's a video:

Thanks will watch later!

 

[bcube]

"Edit: i didnt understand anything in that link."

Could you be more specific where you got lost? If not, I'm sorry to say I have nothing more to add.

P.S. since understanding a parity is not easy (at least for someone who doesn't own physical 4x4x4 cube yet), you might want to re-read some parts of that article again to grasp it.

 

[mark49152]

No disrespect because it's good work, but that article is completely inappropriate for the OP. It's an advanced, theoretical and in-depth study that goes way beyond what is needed to solve a 4x4 and it's not really fair to recommend that to a beginner who doesn't even know at an elementary and practical level what parity is.

To OP: none of it is rocket science but it does take some patience to work it out. Just get a 4x4, play around with it, watch a bunch of videos, take your time, and enjoy the process of learning the puzzle. 4x4 is great fun and a nice step up in challenge from 3x3. Don't worry about parity yet, you will understand it clearly enough once you encounter it .

 

[JimCube]

No disrespect because it's good work, but that article is completely inappropriate for the OP. It's an advanced, theoretical and in-depth study that goes way beyond what is needed to solve a 4x4 and it's not really fair to recommend that to a beginner who doesn't even know at an elementary and practical level what parity is.

To OP: none of it is rocket science but it does take some patience to work it out. Just get a 4x4, play around with it, watch a bunch of videos, take your time, and enjoy the process of learning the puzzle. 4x4 is great fun and a nice step up in challenge from 3x3. Don't worry about parity yet, you will understand it clearly enough once you encounter it .

Yes i will play around with it. Thanks!

 

[JimCube]

"Edit: i didnt understand anything in that link."

Could you be more specific where you got lost? If not, I'm sorry to say I have nothing more to add.

P.S. since understanding a parity is not easy (at least for someone who doesn't own physical 4x4x4 cube yet), you might want to re-read some parts of that article again to grasp it.

I got lost in the first sentence and I didn't understand any other. No offense but I don't think much other 12 year olds would understand that. Thanks for the article though I will definatly read it some other time.

 

[shadowslice e]

I got lost in the first sentence and I didn't understand any other. No offense but I don't think much other 12 year olds would understand that. Thanks for the article though I will definatly read it some other time.

Basically, parity is an "error" in reduction of NxNxN->3x3x3 which represents a set of states where the cube cannot be solved using the subset {R,L,U,D,F,B} (the 3x3 subset). This is essentially becuase of a "mistake" in the first phase of a 2-phase solution (the stages being reduction, solve like a 3x3x3)

To explain this, let's ignore 4x4x4 for now and focus on a similar problem on 3x3x3. Our first phase will be the F2L and the second will be the LL. As we can tell all the pieces apart, there will be no issue with the LL as it will always be in the standard OLL/PLL states.

However, imagine if we could not tell the orientation of one of the corners in the F2L. This means that suddenly there would be a whole series of new OLL positions that could not be solved using standard OLL because all the corners could be oriented differently. To fix this, we can simply add an extra algorithm which twists the F2L corner back to the state it would be in if we could tell the difference.

For Speedsolvers using a reduction method such as Yau or Hoya etc, a similar situation can occur in two ways: Permutation and Orientation (you can't actually get a permutation parity on odd layered cubes but as this is on 4x4x4 on a more basic level so I will not be adressing that).

For orientation parity, this is where there is a "flipped edge". Or an odd number of dedges misoriented or oriented. This is because there are pieces which appear identical to a human but the mechanism of the cube treats differently. In this case, the wings of the cube have been swapped so the algorithm to fix it will swap those two pieces back (there is another reason with centres but that is currently unimportant).

For permutation parity, this is where there is only two edges or corners swapped- a state which is impossible on a regular 3x3x3. This means that they must be swapped again to get to a normal 3x3 state. This is due to centres being in the wrong place rather than edges.

If you want a more in depth explanation, PM me and I will also be able to clarify anything which you didnt understand.

 

[JimCube]

Basically, parity is an "error" in reduction of NxNxN->3x3x3 which represents a set of states where the cube cannot be solved using the subset {R,L,U,D,F,B} (the 3x3 subset). This is essentially becuase of a "mistake" in the first phase of a 2-phase solution (the stages being reduction, solve like a 3x3x3)

To explain this, let's ignore 4x4x4 for now and focus on a similar problem on 3x3x3. Our first phase will be the F2L and the second will be the LL. As we can tell all the pieces apart, there will be no issue with the LL as it will always be in the standard OLL/PLL states.

However, imagine if we could not tell the orientation of one of the corners in the F2L. This means that suddenly there would be a whole series of new OLL positions that could not be solved using standard OLL because all the corners could be oriented differently. To fix this, we can simply add an extra algorithm which twists the F2L corner back to the state it would be in if we could tell the difference.

For Speedsolvers using a reduction method such as Yau or Hoya etc, a similar situation can occur in two ways: Permutation and Orientation (you can't actually get a permutation parity on odd layered cubes but as this is on 4x4x4 on a more basic level so I will not be adressing that).

For orientation parity, this is where there is a "flipped edge". Or an odd number of dedges misoriented or oriented. This is because there are pieces which appear identical to a human but the mechanism of the cube treats differently. In this case, the wings of the cube have been swapped so the algorithm to fix it will swap those two pieces back (there is another reason with centres but that is currently unimportant).

For permutation parity, this is where there is only two edges or corners swapped- a state which is impossible on a regular 3x3x3. This means that they must be swapped again to get to a normal 3x3 state. This is due to centres being in the wrong place rather than edges.

If you want a more in depth explanation, PM me and I will also be able to clarify anything which you didnt understand.

Ok thanks a lot!