Questions tagged [twisty-puzzles]
Twisty puzzles consist of a set of pieces which can be manipulated into different combinations by a group of operations. Use this tag for puzzles similar to the archetype of combination puzzles, the Rubik's cube.
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Does the Rubik's Cube in this painting have a solved state?
This is an image of a Rubik's Cube I found in the Men's Toilets during the first day of a big Scrabble tournament.
This position is impossible for the standard Rubik's Cube (White/Red/Blue opposite ...
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What is the best method of scrambling a rubik's cube?
If I wanted to solve a physical Rubik's cube multiple times, for practice, what is the best, most random way, to scramble the solved cube?
The best way I can think is to hold it behind my back and ...
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How can one solve a Rubik's cube without relying on guides/algorithms?
I am wondering who is able to solve Rubik's cube just by thinking without knowing the rules behind it. As far as I know the inventor Ernő Rubik was professor of architecture and he intended to help ...
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CSE Hex Cube Puzzle
I've been tackling this puzzle named "Hex Cube" from the CSE (Communications Security Establishment, the Canadian "equivalent" of the NSA) which comes with the instructions: "...
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Is there a move-efficient way to rotate the center pieces on the Octo-Star?
I'm looking for a more efficient algorithm to rotate the center column of the Octo-Star puzzle 45 degrees.
The situation below occurs when four properly-oriented edges are next to each other, ...
user20
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Is it possible to scramble a Rubik's cube such that no two squares of the same color are touching?
My friend always insists on scrambling my Rubik's cube "perfectly" before giving it to me to solve. According to his definition, a "perfect" scramble must have no three of the same ...
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Barely Illegal Rubik's Cube State
(If you are not interested in the backstory, you can skip right to the picture.)
At Most Complicated Illegal Partial State of Rubik’s Cube, user @happystar asks a very interesting question about ...
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Single solved state for Sudoku Pyraminx
(Not sure if this is the correct stackexchange, but I think it is.)
I recently bought 10 QJ Pyraminxes with an ambitious idea for a mod in my head. After just the first step of modding I realized it ...
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Peeled Rubik's Cube
Help! A [toddler / pet / washing machine] has peeled some of the stickers off my old off-brand Rubik's Cube. Can you still solve it and show me the result?
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What is the name (and brand / year) of this puzzle?
First a bit of background. I'm a collector of twisty puzzles. I've been collecting them for almost 3.5 years now. Here is my current collection of 209 puzzles.
As you may be able to tell by the ...
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Is it possible to use one sequence of moves to solve the Rubik's cube from any position?
Is there a sequence of moves that can be repeated over and over again which can solve any legal position the Rubik's Cube? If so what is it, and if there's more than one, what's the shortest? If not, ...
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On The Subject of Rubik's Cube
(This is part of a series of puzzles written for Timwi for a Secret Santa puzzle exchange, themed around various custom modules for the game Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. No KTaNE knowledge is ...
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Help with the name of this puzzle
When I was cleaning my basement I found one puzzle that my father gave me when I was a child.
I really want to know the name of it! Could someone help me?
The puzzle consist in 4 disks, and each ...
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Minimum effort to detect a solved Rubik's Cube
When writing a program to permute a Rubik's Cube and then subsequently detect whether it is solved or not, what is the absolute minimum amount of programmatic effort required to determine if the cube ...
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How to Flip Adjacent Edges like this
Only these two edges are misplaced. Any algorithm to solve this?
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How to solve Oskar van Deventer's gear maze 2x2
One of Oskar van Deventer's puzzles is the gear maze 2x2.There are 4 gears connected together so if you move one gear all four gears rotate (two clockwise, the other two counter-clockwise).On the ...
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How do I memorize parity algorithms for higher-order Rubik's cubes?
I know how to solve a Rubik $4\times4\times4$ or $5\times5\times5$ or bigger, but I have problem with a specific algorithm: the parity error.
What's the shortest parity algorithm for $n\times n\times ...
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Worst way to solve Rubik's in one algorithm
If you apply the same algorithm over and over again the cube will be solved.
I want to know what algorithm is the worst one (the one with the longest cycle)
I have found RU (cycle of 60 times)
I have ...
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3x3x3 Rubik's Cube Illegal State
After I learned how to solve a 3x3 Rubik's Cube and a 4x4 Rubik's Revenge, I began challenging myself to solve the cubes to different states rather than the normal solid sides. For instance, I'd solve ...
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Rubik's Cube Photo Review
Recently, I saw this motivational picture (Clicky to embiggen):
(source)
Since I found the message somewhat confusing, I searched Google for more similar images.
Can you tell what do all these ...
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Illegal patterns for the Rubik's cube
It is known that if you take apart the Rubik's cube and then reassemble it randomly, you will end out in one of $12$ cases, among which only one is solvable. The others result in having (1) one piece ...
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Communication via a Rubik's cube
I watched The Promised Neverland recently and after exploring a little, I found out that Norman used a 5x5x5 Rubik's cube (aka a professor's cube) to communicate when he was held at the $\Lambda\text{-...
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How do I solve the C4Y 3x3x7?
I have been solving the Rubik's Cube 2x2x2, 3x3x3, 4x4x4 and 5x5x5, and because things are very similar I thought a 6x6x6 wouldn't be a challenge much. So I bought the C4U 3x3x7 - see image. What I ...
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A rubik's cube that fights back
After the incidents of Skyfall, 007 remembered a quote Q had said when he was accessing Silva's Omega site :
It's like solving a Rubiks cube that's fighting back.
007, intrigued by this statement, ...
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Cube Scrambling
Take a normal 3x3 rubiks cube (the Classic unmodded cube).
I know the WCA method for scrambling is to pick a random (valid) cube state and calculate a sequence of moves to go from solved to that state,...
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How can I swap opposite corners on the same face of a 2x2 cube?
I've been experimenting with using Y-permutations to solve the 2x2 cube as described here. I ended up with the cube solved but for a single face where the opposite corners were swapped and disoriented....
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Square 1 Adjacent swap
I just got my first ever square one ( a Rubik's cube related puzzle ) and I have this case which I can't find any help on. An adjacent edge swap, with the equator solved. There is the parity ...
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How do I solve the top yellow layer of the Rubik's cube?
I used to solve the Rubik's cube using the standard algorithm. Recently, after a long time I tried doing it again. I did revisit the algorithm to solve the Rubik's cube, but I'm stuck in the top ...
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Rubik's Cube: Does going from one arbitrary configuration to another have same God's Number as solving it?
Assuming two different (valid) configurations for a Rubik's Cube - A and B - does going from A to B directly have the same complexity as solving the cube?
Considering solving a cube can be done in 20 ...
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Adjusting wrongly assembled Rubik's Cube
I bought a new Rubik's Cube and was able to solve it with some tutorials.
However, I made a wrong movement, so that one piece came out. I think, I put it wrong together, because I'm not able to solve ...
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How can I switch 2 yellow corners that are on the same face of a 3x3 cube?
How can I switch these two corners?
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Twisty puzzle composed of hexagonal prisms, with As and diamonds
(click to enlarge)
My friend let me have a go of his cube and neither of us know what its called or where to buy one.
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Simple 4x4x4 OLL parity algs?
I am learning to solve a 4x4x4 Rubik's cube and I think that the beginner OLL parity alg:
(r U2 x r U2 r' U2 l U2 r' U2 r U2 r' U2 r')
is a little too complex.
...
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How many stickers can a Rubik's Cube lose?
I have an old Rubik's Cube, the kind with stickers. The stickers tend to fall off.
That got me wondering: How many stickers can you remove from a Rubik's Cube at most, while preserving the property ...
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1x1x1 Rubiks Cube Puzzle
The solved position of 1x1x1 Rubiks cubes as shown was shuffle rolled without moving outside the 4x4 puzzle grid. All cubes are similar with face opposite colors: red to magenta,green to yellow and ...
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$4\times4\times4$ Rubiks cube Top Layer Issue
The only way i am able to solve is to jumble the whole cube again. If you know the way to solve pls give images or algorithm.
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How can I solve the Gear Cube Extreme?
The Gear Cube Extreme is another Mechanical Puzzle. I ordered it not so long ago and a friend of mine "accidentally" scrambled it. Now I want to solve it again but I have no idea how or even where to ...
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Engel's Enigma Optimals
I'm implementing a Douglas Engel's puzzle, Color Wheels (reproduced with permission) and now I would like to check solutions of users.
For those of you that don't know the puzzle, here you can see ...
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Unsolving a Rubik's Cube so each face has a P pentomimo and L tetromino
A few days ago I picked up a solved Rubik's Cube that I had abandoned due to forgetting how to solve it, and started turning the faces to make nice patterns. A few minutes later, I'd made one - each ...
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How do I rotate edges on the Geared Mixup puzzle?
I've recently acquired a Geared Mixup puzzle, and have spent several hours trying to solve this particular problem.
I've pretty much solved the puzzle. All centers, edges, and corners are in the ...
user20
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Most Complicated Illegal Partial State of Rubik’s Cube
This puzzle is a follow-up for Does The Rubik’s Cube In This Painting Have A Solved State?
What is the most complicated illegal “partial state” possible for a Rubik’s Cube?
To be more specific: a ...
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Rubik's M Slice Using Thumb
I've been cubing for a couple of years now, so I'm quite familiar with all the various finger tricks and different ways to move faces and slices. Most of the ones I came up with when I started were ...
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Rubik's Scramble Search
Find a scramble which will produce a Rubik's cube fulfilling the following criteria which uses as few turns of faces as possible (Half-Turn-Metric):
Each of the six faces show exactly three colours
...
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Mathematical Proof of a Rubik’s Cube
Has it been proven (or disproven) that, from a solved state, there exists a number “x” for any algorithm, such that you can perform said algorithm x times to get back to a solved state. I feel like ...
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Name of Rubik's Cube position with swapped corners & centers
What is this Rubik's Cube setup called? I tried to swap the corners and centers of each side. Is there a name for this?
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Unlocking a curiously-geared combination lock
The image shows numbers on ring-dials on a curiously-geared combination lock, where the current setting is (3,3,3,3) and ring sizes are (5,7,8,11), inner to outer. The setting (0,0,0,0) opens the ...
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Spin the letter-squares!
Spin the letter-squares!
A 5x3 grid of letters, e.g.,
a b c d e
f g h i j
k l m n o
can be rearranged by spinning either the 3x3 section centered at the second letter of the second row (in this case ...
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Maximal number of steps needed to solve 2x2x2 Rubik's Cube
What is the maximal number of steps that a computer (using the fastest algorithm) would need to solve an arbitrary 2x2x2 Rubik's Cube configuration?
Are there any other known algorithms that will ...
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