Yesterday, Christmas Eve, Superman visited me at 11:59pm with a huge box. Even he, a strong man, was carrying it with such force.
I had a bad feeling because he had brought me a big and heavy puzzle last time, which I had given up playing.
He said to me, “I brought this for you.”
My bad feeling turned out to be true. I was slightly worried inside, but outwardly I put on a grateful face.
Then, he opened the big box and pulled out a small box with ribbon, and said, “This is my Christmas present for you.”
I was surprised and said to him, “Thank you very much. But why did you bring such a huge box and also look weak?”
He replied, “I had many full big boxes with about 1 billion presents, and have just delivered them to each house in the world, and yours is the last. I am really exhausted.”
Then I understood the reason, but why is he doing that job? I asked him, “Isn't that Santa Claus' job? Why you?”
He replied, “Santa asked me to do this because he saw a Superman movie a while ago, and thought that I could deliver presents in much less time than his sleigh pulled by 9 reindeers.”
Well, well, he was really a multi-purpose man.
Let’s open his present…
Wow! A beautiful LEDs-illuminated 3x3 cube!
Right away I tried to move R U R’, but couldn’t move U. Some of the slices (U, D, F, etc.) could be turned.
Superman explained, “This is a special cube. You can only turn R & L slices and twist the corners.”
I twisted UFR corner clockwise, then the following movements occurred. Of course, these were due to the effect of the LEDs color change, not physical changes.
(Original position)
⇩(after UFR twisted clockwise)
⇩ (and after UFL is twisted clockwise…)
I checked and confirmed that the parities of EP & CP kept maintained. R & L were the same turns as normal cubes. The puzzle was found to be always solvable.
Thank you very much, Santa & Superman!
I had a bad feeling because he had brought me a big and heavy puzzle last time, which I had given up playing.
He said to me, “I brought this for you.”
My bad feeling turned out to be true. I was slightly worried inside, but outwardly I put on a grateful face.
Then, he opened the big box and pulled out a small box with ribbon, and said, “This is my Christmas present for you.”
I was surprised and said to him, “Thank you very much. But why did you bring such a huge box and also look weak?”
He replied, “I had many full big boxes with about 1 billion presents, and have just delivered them to each house in the world, and yours is the last. I am really exhausted.”
Then I understood the reason, but why is he doing that job? I asked him, “Isn't that Santa Claus' job? Why you?”
He replied, “Santa asked me to do this because he saw a Superman movie a while ago, and thought that I could deliver presents in much less time than his sleigh pulled by 9 reindeers.”
Well, well, he was really a multi-purpose man.
Let’s open his present…
Wow! A beautiful LEDs-illuminated 3x3 cube!
Right away I tried to move R U R’, but couldn’t move U. Some of the slices (U, D, F, etc.) could be turned.
Superman explained, “This is a special cube. You can only turn R & L slices and twist the corners.”
I twisted UFR corner clockwise, then the following movements occurred. Of course, these were due to the effect of the LEDs color change, not physical changes.
- The 3 EPs adjacent to that corner changed their positions to others clockwise. UF->RU->FR->UF.
- The 3 CPs adjacent to those 3 EPs changed their positions to others clockwise. UFL->RUB->FRB->UFL.
- The corner which I twisted rotated back counterclockwise to return to the original direction.
(Original position)
⇩(after UFR twisted clockwise)
⇩ (and after UFL is twisted clockwise…)
I checked and confirmed that the parities of EP & CP kept maintained. R & L were the same turns as normal cubes. The puzzle was found to be always solvable.
Thank you very much, Santa & Superman!
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