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Rubik
Rubik
Questions:
1. How many different ways can six
colors be assigned to the six faces?
2. How are the colors of each pair of Rubik’s standard color arrangement.
opposite faces related at right?
The cube actually consists of 26 visible cubies, consisting of
• 6 single faced, centers, which are stationary.
• 12 double faced, edges.
• 8 triple faced, corners.
David Singmaster’s Notation
David Singmaster1 published one of the first analyses of the Magic Cube. He
introduced the following notation:
U
• U, for the Upper face,
• F , for the Front face, B
Note that the Magic Cube can be oriented 24 ways within this coordinate system:
• the upper face can be chosen 6 different ways.
• for each upper face, the front face can be chosen 4 different ways.
• 6 × 4 = 24.
1. David Singmaster, Notes on Rubik’s Magic Cube, Enslow, Hillside, NJ, 1981.
Singmaster’s Operations: U
F0
Singmaster’s Operations: D
D0
Singmaster’s Operations: B
B0
Singmaster’s Operations: L
L0
Singmaster’s Operations: R
R0
Restore the Cube: Outline
F 0UL0U 0.
The top row illustrates two successive occurrences of Case B. The left two di-
agrams show how the red-yellow edge is moved into its correct position with
RU 0 R 0 F R 0 F 0 RU 0 . The right two, show how the orange-yellow edge is moved into
its correct position by the same operation.
The bottom row illustrates an occurrence of Case B, that leads to a Case C. First the
orange-white edge is moved into its correct position, but with an incorrect orienta-
tion. Applying RU 0 R 0 F R 0 F 0 RU 0 moves it back into the top layer, but flipped. A third
application, brings the orange-white edge into the correct position and orientation.
Part III: Restoring the Upper Layer
Now that the bottom and middle layers are complete, every cubie in the upper
layer has a single blue face. In order to restore the upper face, one needs to
5. Flip the edge cubies so that the blue face of each
faces upwards.
6. Move the edge cubies to their final locations,
without destroying their orientation.
7. Move the corner cubies to their final locations.
8. Rotate the corner cubies (in place) so that the
blue face of each faces upwards.
Part III: Step 5 — Flip the New Upper Edges
F RUR 0U 0F 0
At this point of the solution, the bottom two layers should be solved, and a blue
cross, should appear on the top face. If you are very lucky, the red, white, yellow
and orange sides of the blue cross match all four of the corresponding center
cubies. (Twist the upper layer using a succession of U operations, to see if this
occurs. If so procede to Step 7.) If you are not so lucky, twist the upper layer
until exactly one of the sides of the blue cross matches its center cubie. Rotate
the cube so that the matching side cubie is in the front face. In the figures below
the matching cubie happens to be red.
The key sequence of Step 7 is L0URU 0LUR 0U 0, which rotates (or cycles) the
upper three corners (ulf , ulb, urb), in a clockwise direction, while maintaining
the positions and orientation of the remaining 23 cubies.
Step 7 — Place the Upper Corners (cont.)
7a. If no upper corners are in their correct positions, apply L0URU 0LUR 0U 0
(once or twice) until one is. Then continue.
7b. If one corner is in its correct position, then rotate the entire cube so that
the correctly placed corner is near your right thumb, in the upper-right-
front (urf ) position. Then apply L0URU 0LUR 0U 0 (once or twice) until all
four upper corners are correctly placed.
Part III: Step 8 — Twist the Upper Corners
At this point every cube is in the correct position. However, two or more corners
may have an incorrect orientation.
The key sequence of Step 8 is R 0D 0RD, which you already practiced in Step 2.
8a. Rotate the entire cube until an incorrectly ori-
ented (twisted) corner is located near your right
thumb. (It should be in the urf position.) urf
urf
Summary
Use R 0 D 0 RD to swap (and twist) the urf and drf corners. After
upper
each misplaced corner has been moved to the down (blue) layer,
(green)
use the D operator to move it immediately below its home.
corners
Then apply R 0 D 0 RD a sufficient number of times, so that it is
correctly placed and correctly oriented.
Easy as pie! Turn the entire cube upside down so that the blue
flip
center on top and the completed green face is the new down
entire
layer.
cube
Counting this number is sort of like counting the number of anagrams that can
be formed from a given set of letters. We thus count permutations.
Recall that there are three kinds of cubies: 8 corners, 12 edges, and 6 centers.
First note that it is impossible to exchange a three-sided corner with a two-sided
edge, and likewise we can’t exchange a center with either a corner or edge.
How Many States are in the Cube?
Let,
N = N1 × N2 × N3.
Since the locations of the centers are unchanged by each of the six basic
operations, they are also unchanged by any sequence of these operations.
Thus,
N1 = 1.
Thus,
N = 1 × N2 × N3.
Since there are 12 locations (cubicles) for each edge, there are 12! ways to order
the edges. In addition, each edge can be flipped in two different ways: e.g., the
red-blue edge can be red-side up, or blue-side up. This suggests that there are
at most
Since there are 8 corner cubicles (locations for the corners), there are 8! ways to
order the corners. In addition each corner can be twisted three different ways.
This suggests that, at most,
This number,
1 × (12! × 212) × (8! × 38) = 519, 024, 039, 293, 878, 272, 000
actually represents (exactly) the number of different ways that Rubik’s cube can
be reassembled, assuming that the centers are not rearranged.
Anne Scott (cf., Berlekamp, Conway, Guy, 2004), showed that this value overes-
timates the correct value of N by a factor of 12.
Invariants
time (s.) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
coin toss H T H H T T T T T H
x 0 4 2 6 10 8 6 4 2 0 4
Correct! The answer is no. Since x begins as an even number, and every possible
operation (adding 4 or subtracting 2) preserves evenness, x will always be even.
Sam Loyd (1841–1911) created many popular puzzles, including the celebrated
14–15 puzzle, shown above. Can you interchange just tiles labeled 14 and 15,
by sliding tiles horizontally or vertically into the space? (Loyd offered a $1000
prize to anyone who could.)
For the space to wind up in the lower-right corner, there must have been an
even number of vertical moves, and an even number of horizontal moves. Con-
sequently, only permutations that swap and even number of pieces are possible.
For Loyd’s puzzle, only half of the 16! states are realizable.
Anne Scott used invariants to exactly count the number of possible states for
Rubik’s cube.
Reexamining the allowed corner twists
The final reduction factor is obtained by observing that only one-half of the 12!×
8! permutations of the locations of the 12 edges and 8 corners are realizable.
Each sequence of operations always moves a multiple of 4 pieces. It is thus
impossible to interchange just two corners, or just two edges.
Thus,
1 1 1
N= × × × 12! × 212 × 8! × 38
2 2 3
0 R0 F
Rm Fm Fs2Rs2Us2 R 0L2Fs2U 2Rs2Fs2D 2R 0
m m
1. Christoph Bandelow, Inside Rubik’s Cube and Beyond, Birkhäuser, Boston, 1982.
2. Elwyn R. Berlekamp, John H. Conway, and Richard K. Guy, Winning Ways For Your Mathe-
matical Plays, Second Edition, Vol. 4, A. K. Peters, Natick, MA, 2004.
3. John Ewing and Czes Kośniowski, Puzzle It Out: Cube Groups and Puzzles, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge 1982.
4. Alexander H. Frey, Jr. and David Singmaster, Handbook of Cubik Math, Enslow, Hillside,
NJ, 1982.
5. Martin Gardner, ed., The Mathematical Puzzles of Sam Loyd, Dover, NY, 1959.
6. David Joyner, Adventures in Group Theory: Rubik’s Cube, Merlin’s Magic & Other Mathe-
matical Toys, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2002.
7. Ernö Rubik, Tamás Varga, Gerzson Kéri, Györgi Marx, and Tamás Vkerdy, Rubik’s Cubic
Compendium, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1987.
8. David Singmaster, Notes on Rubik’s Magic Cube, Enslow, Hillside, NJ, 1981.