One day Superman brought me a puzzle called “Möbius loop puzzle” from his Forth dimensional world.
The following explanation gives you what the Möbius loop is. If you know it well, you can skip one paragraph.
(Möbius loop)
“It can be constructed fairly easily from a long, thin strip of paper. One end is taped to the other so that it would form a ring, except with one difference: there is a half-twist in the middle, so that "Side A" of the piece of paper at one end is attached to "Side B" of the piece of paper at the other end. It is now possible to go from one side of the paper to the opposite side of the paper without crossing the edge simply by following the circuit of the loop. One circuit around the loop will end you exactly opposite your starting point, and another circuit around will land you back where you began.”
(Source: http://weekendfisher.blogspot.com/2007/07/mbius-logic-puzzles-that-cannot-reach.html?m=1)
The Superman’s one has the same shape, except for the following points.
(Image)
1. The 2 circuits can move independently. As you can understand by the above explanation, it is composed by 2 circuits (the outer 2 are the same track, and so are the inner 2), although it looks there are 4.
2. There is one slot in which 4 pieces in it can rotate vertically and go to the other circuit. Those pieces can only rotate together, and not interchange individually.
3. Each small square is a detachable 2-face piece with 2 different colors, and there are 100 pieces per circuit, so there are 200 pieces (400 colors) in total in this puzzle. As Superman already knew by his succor ball puzzle that this möbius loop puzzle would not work smoothly in our Third dimensional world, he brought an internal-LEDs-illuminating version. When I swiped the surface of one piece, the colors of LEDs changed and gave the effect of movements.
Wonderful! It is playable!
Superman looked very happy, and disappeared in the blink of an eye after he scrambled the puzzle.
Fuh!
I let out a sigh, and put it on the table without play that day.
Honestly speaking, I am a little reluctant to play with this puzzle, even if I am sorry to him.
First, it is too huge and heavy.
The diameter of the circuit is 50cm, and maybe weighs more than 20kg. When he handed it to me hanging it on his forefinger, I almost dropped it.
Second, it has too many pieces.
Rearranging 200 pieces by fingers would be quite a challenge. He handed me a list of some scramble examples. Each scramble has 10,000 moves!
Third and last, the LED colors are beautiful, but difficult to distinguish by human eyes when 2 pieces of little difference of hue are apart.
I thought to give it to Master Yoda, but decided not, since I remembered he was suffering with his color-blind eyesight. So, I think I am going to give it to Mr. Spock, because it would be much lighter in space, making it easier to play.
I hope some readers can build this Superman’s puzzle virtually if interested, and not to mention, please don’t forget to make it with 40 pieces o so.
The following explanation gives you what the Möbius loop is. If you know it well, you can skip one paragraph.
(Möbius loop)
“It can be constructed fairly easily from a long, thin strip of paper. One end is taped to the other so that it would form a ring, except with one difference: there is a half-twist in the middle, so that "Side A" of the piece of paper at one end is attached to "Side B" of the piece of paper at the other end. It is now possible to go from one side of the paper to the opposite side of the paper without crossing the edge simply by following the circuit of the loop. One circuit around the loop will end you exactly opposite your starting point, and another circuit around will land you back where you began.”
(Source: http://weekendfisher.blogspot.com/2007/07/mbius-logic-puzzles-that-cannot-reach.html?m=1)
The Superman’s one has the same shape, except for the following points.
(Image)
1. The 2 circuits can move independently. As you can understand by the above explanation, it is composed by 2 circuits (the outer 2 are the same track, and so are the inner 2), although it looks there are 4.
2. There is one slot in which 4 pieces in it can rotate vertically and go to the other circuit. Those pieces can only rotate together, and not interchange individually.
3. Each small square is a detachable 2-face piece with 2 different colors, and there are 100 pieces per circuit, so there are 200 pieces (400 colors) in total in this puzzle. As Superman already knew by his succor ball puzzle that this möbius loop puzzle would not work smoothly in our Third dimensional world, he brought an internal-LEDs-illuminating version. When I swiped the surface of one piece, the colors of LEDs changed and gave the effect of movements.
Wonderful! It is playable!
Superman looked very happy, and disappeared in the blink of an eye after he scrambled the puzzle.
Fuh!
I let out a sigh, and put it on the table without play that day.
Honestly speaking, I am a little reluctant to play with this puzzle, even if I am sorry to him.
First, it is too huge and heavy.
The diameter of the circuit is 50cm, and maybe weighs more than 20kg. When he handed it to me hanging it on his forefinger, I almost dropped it.
Second, it has too many pieces.
Rearranging 200 pieces by fingers would be quite a challenge. He handed me a list of some scramble examples. Each scramble has 10,000 moves!
Third and last, the LED colors are beautiful, but difficult to distinguish by human eyes when 2 pieces of little difference of hue are apart.
I thought to give it to Master Yoda, but decided not, since I remembered he was suffering with his color-blind eyesight. So, I think I am going to give it to Mr. Spock, because it would be much lighter in space, making it easier to play.
I hope some readers can build this Superman’s puzzle virtually if interested, and not to mention, please don’t forget to make it with 40 pieces o so.
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