Herbert Kociemba
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- Joined
- Nov 29, 2008
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- 214
I am currently working on a general NxNxN cube solver for large N. For large N the main work is to fix the 6*(N-2)^2 centerpieces so I will concentrate on fixing the centers. I also ignore even N in the moment and hence I assume that N is odd for the time being.
A corner piece has three visible facelets, an edge piece has two visible facelets and a centerpiece has only one visible facelet. When talking about the centers I will use the terms "facelet" and "centerpiece" interchangeable.
Using an appropriate coordinate system for each of the 6 faces with coordinates ranging from (0,0) to (N-1,N-1) a facelet at position (x,y) will go to a position (y,N-1-x), (N-1-x,N-1-y) or (N-1-y,x) on the same face when applying a face move and on a different face when applying a slice move. This will lead to 24 different positions of a facelet, except in the case x=y=(N-1)/2 where we only have 6 different positions.
For center facelets the 24 different positions correspond to 24 different centerpieces which constitute the center cluster C(x,y). If we assume without loss of generality 1<=x,y<=(N-1)/2 each center cluster is uniquely determined by x and y.
In the first step we fix all center clusters C(x,y) such that the U and D centers are in the U and D face.
First we solve the "+cross" clusters C(x,(N-1)/2), 1<=x< (N-1)/2. Since there are only Binomial[24,8] different positions, this is done in almost no time.
For x<>y we solve C(x,y) and C(y,x) simultaneously. This is the hardest part because there are Binomial(24,8)^2 different states and there is the additional restriction that the other clusters may not be affected. Usually it takes something from a few seconds to several minutes to solve a single pair C(x,y) and C(y,x).
At the end we solve the "x-cross" clusters C(x,x), 1<=x< (N-1)/2. Again there are only Binomial[24,8] states and the solution can be computed almost instantaneously,
The two pictures show an example for N=51. It took 4211 single face or slice moves within about 4 hours to fix the 4800 U and D facelets in 600 clusters.
In the second step we put the R and L centers into the R and L faces using only 180 degree turns for the R, L, F and B face and slice moves so that the U and D faces will not be destroyed again. More to come...
A corner piece has three visible facelets, an edge piece has two visible facelets and a centerpiece has only one visible facelet. When talking about the centers I will use the terms "facelet" and "centerpiece" interchangeable.
Using an appropriate coordinate system for each of the 6 faces with coordinates ranging from (0,0) to (N-1,N-1) a facelet at position (x,y) will go to a position (y,N-1-x), (N-1-x,N-1-y) or (N-1-y,x) on the same face when applying a face move and on a different face when applying a slice move. This will lead to 24 different positions of a facelet, except in the case x=y=(N-1)/2 where we only have 6 different positions.
For center facelets the 24 different positions correspond to 24 different centerpieces which constitute the center cluster C(x,y). If we assume without loss of generality 1<=x,y<=(N-1)/2 each center cluster is uniquely determined by x and y.
In the first step we fix all center clusters C(x,y) such that the U and D centers are in the U and D face.
First we solve the "+cross" clusters C(x,(N-1)/2), 1<=x< (N-1)/2. Since there are only Binomial[24,8] different positions, this is done in almost no time.
For x<>y we solve C(x,y) and C(y,x) simultaneously. This is the hardest part because there are Binomial(24,8)^2 different states and there is the additional restriction that the other clusters may not be affected. Usually it takes something from a few seconds to several minutes to solve a single pair C(x,y) and C(y,x).
At the end we solve the "x-cross" clusters C(x,x), 1<=x< (N-1)/2. Again there are only Binomial[24,8] states and the solution can be computed almost instantaneously,
The two pictures show an example for N=51. It took 4211 single face or slice moves within about 4 hours to fix the 4800 U and D facelets in 600 clusters.
In the second step we put the R and L centers into the R and L faces using only 180 degree turns for the R, L, F and B face and slice moves so that the U and D faces will not be destroyed again. More to come...
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