https://www.puzzlemad.co.uk/2014/01/parity-is-to-be-understood-not-feared.

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Parity is to be understood not feared!

OMG! A giant cube and a double parity!

Before you all switch off because it's a twisty post, there's a special little treat at the end of this post
and DON'T scroll straight there! I saw you!

Yes! I am sorry to all you non-twisty puzzlers but here's another post about them. My aim really is to
try and demystify them and encourage you all to have a go. I agree, the learning curve can be steep
but, we are all puzzlers here and should enjoy trying something new and to stretch our solving skills!
Today I am going to talk about the dreaded "PARITY" problem and show you that it should not be
feared. In fact, it needs to be understood and even enjoyed for the added dimension that it adds to
your puzzling. In the process, I will show you some new cubes that I bought from a relatively new
shop: cubezz.com has sort of burst on the scene with some really good prices and excellent service -
go and have a look.

Lovely like this More lovely like this?

At the top of the article there is a special view of a fantastic new cube on the market. It is the
Shengshou 10x10x10 cube and despite its phenomenal complexity it is smooth as butter and an
absolute dream to scramble and solve. I took it to work a few times and everyone was absolutely
fascinated by it! It looks amazing either solved or (some would say it looks better) scrambled. I have
solved it quite a few times and apart from the hand ache caused by it's sheer size and weight it is
wonderful - currently it is my favourite cubic puzzle. This puzzle is what is known as a "knock off" and
so not listed on most websites so if you wish to buy it from cubez then just contact them and ask
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(their price is the best by a very large margin). The "special view" in the top picture is of the cube
exhibiting not just one, but two parities and it is really not to be feared at all.

So having frightened you to death, what is a parity and more importantly, why does it occur? At the
beginning of last year I posted about a classification of cuboids and then recently republished it in
print for the CFF journal and in those articles I talk about several different types of parity. I really
would hope that most of you puzzlers at least own a 3x3 cube and have made some attempt at
solving it! After all if you are puzzlers then you should not just ignore such an important section of
our hobby completely - the founding model should be in every collection. For those of you who have
done the 3x3 there is NO parity and you should be very pleased with yourself that you can do what
the vast majority of the world's population cannot!

4x4 reduced to a 3x3

You see a parity in an ordinary cube when you move up a difficulty level and move to the 4x4 and in
fact every even order cube exhibits them. They are a direct result of the approach that most of us
take to solving these bigger cubes. Many would think that the correct way to solve a 4x4 or higher
(right up to 10x10) would be to just do it layer by layer as many do for the 3x3. I have solved
everything up to 7x7 in that manner and whilst fun it is VERY arduous and strangely introduces a new
parity! What most people do is they reduce the bigger cubes to a very odd shaped 3x3 - that is you
group all the centres together by colour, then you recreate the edges (paying no attention to where
they go) e.g. just move all the Red-Blue edge pieces into one big edge and this effectively leaves one
with a oddly proportioned 3x3 with giant centre pieces and edges and small single cube corners.

Now it is this very reduction technique that causes the issue - when you are reforming your double
piece edges (aka 'dedges') you cannot tell by looking at it whether the a R-B edge piece should be on
the right of the pair or on the left. This possibility of getting them the wrong way around is there for
every single edge piece pair. The end result is that you may have what looks like a scrambled 3x3
(albeit a funny shaped one) but with one (or 2) of the edges in a conformation that a standard 3x3
cannot reach. You cannot tell this by looking at it! You only find out when you reach the final part of
the solution process when you may find one of two different "impossible" situations. Or, horror of
horrors, as in the very first picture you may have both!

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 2 opposite edges swapped single edge flip

These are absolutely impossible on a 3x3!

So what can you do about it? Having understood how it comes about then it should be relatively
straight forward to repair the issue. We know that in one case one of the edges has been reformed
with a single edge reformed the wrong way around - this causes the single edge flip parity above. So
the easiest thing to do is memorise a huge long algorithm which will flip the edge - after an
enormous amount of time I have finally memorised one of these algorithms. SuperAntonioVivaldi
calls it the RedBull algorithm.
r2 B2 U2 l U2 r' U2 r U2 F2 r F2 l' B2 l2 OMG!!!!

It is actually not too bad to memorise but I barely remember my name sometimes and so struggled
with it! Effectively it dismantles the edge and flips it over by swapping the 2 pieces. For a long time in
my puzzle solving I could not remember the algorithm and so I went to first principles and used a
technique from Rline's site in which he simply dismantled the edge and put it together again. Then
you are ready to solve the 3x3 again. When you first start out with twisty puzzles you may do what I
did. Learn a 3x3 and then try a 4x4 and get so horrified that you stick to odd order cubes for a while -
BUT once you understand the cause then you seek out puzzles that exhibit it to add an extra
dimension - you need to understand why they occur!

I can hear you asking:

"Can this awful parity thing be avoided completely?"

Yes - I'm hearing voices again!

It is indeed possible by solving it in a totally different way. I mentioned solving them layer by layer -
but whilst this is a fun diversion, it doesn't actually prevent it because you are still potentially left
with the edge pieces in the wrong way around when you get to the last layer. The only way to solve a
4x4 without these parities is to avoid reducing the edges at all! This means that an approach of
reducing from an even to an odd order puzzle doesn't work and another idea is needed. How about
reducing a 4x4 to a 2x2? This sounds awful but the solution is based on the solution to something
that I originally thought was horrific - The Bandaged AI cube.

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 Bandaged AI cube

This is a 4x4 with four of the 2x2 blocks bandaged together - this means that the remaining 2x2
corner blocks need to be reformed and then solved as a 2x2 - This is a hugely fun puzzle and very
challenging.

Can it be done with bigger cubes? I suspect it can but have not tested it - SuperAntonioVivaldi
has challengedhis viewers to try it with a 6x6 (unfortunately I don't have one and so cannot try it just
now. Maybe soon?

So hopefully you will be motivated to go out and buy a 4x4 - they are very cheap at cubezz.com or
can be bought from general puzzle stores like Puzzle Master. If you need something really impressive
and special then definitely go to Cubez and ask for the 10x10 - you really will not be disappointed - I
love it!!

In a couple of weeks there will be a part 2 of this in which I discuss other parities that are possible in
different puzzles and why they occur. Hopefully this will encourage you to try something new and
realise that it is not something to be feared and all is just an extension of basic ideas. Being a 'bear of
very little brains' I really have no way to memorise lots of algorithms - for me the aim is to
understand what is going on and work my way through by deduction and using only very few ideas.

http://twistypuzzles.com/~sandy/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31764

For those who aren't familiar with the term - this is the algorithm which is most commonly used for
flipping two edge pieces. It can be used on both odd and even layered puzzles, starting with the
4x4x4 and going up from there. The algorithm itself is 2mR, 2B, 2U, mL, 2U, mRi, 2U, mR, 2U, 2F, mR,
2F, mLi, 2B, 2mR (I prefer to annotate it for myself without the "m", but I noted the "m" here to
emphasize that the R and L moves are for the middle slices and not the outer ones).

First, to clarify why it's often referred to as a the "Red Bull" algorithm. If you look at the first four
moves, it's 2mR, 2B, 2U, and mL. Now, if you take away all the supplementary annotations, you are
left with R, B, U, L, which is sort of like an acronym that spells out R... BUL; which brings to mind "Red
Bull". That's how it got this name.

Now, how does one go about memorizing such a long algorithm? There are different ways to
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memorize it, but I'll share the method that was most efficient for me.

First, you break down the algorithm into three groups. The "intro", the "body", and the "outro".

The intro and outro are exact opposites of each other, which, in this case is 2mR, 2B for the intro,
and then 2B, 2mR for the outro.

As for the body, I came up with a story line to help me memorize the steps. The story line is about a
mountain climber, and thus I refer to this method as "the mountain climber". Think of a mountain
climber trying to climb up a mountain step by step.

The first step is that he tries to climb "up", which is symbolized by 2U (since the "U" in 2U stands for
"upper face").

The second step is that he fails in his attempt and his left leg slips and falls "down". This is
symbolized by mL, which is the middle left layer being turned "down" 90 degrees.

The third step is that he tries again to climb "up" - 2U.

The fourth step is that he fails again, this time with his right leg slipping and falling "down" - mRi (i.e.
the right middle layer being turned "down" 90 degrees).

The fifth step is that he doesn't give up and tries again to climb "up" - 2U.

The sixth step is that he starts to succeed - his right leg goes "up", as symbolized by mR (i.e. the right
middle layer being turned "up" 90 degrees).

The seventh step is that he keeps trying to go further "up" - 2U.

He doesn't budge, his effort to go up was not enough, so the eighth step is that he now pushes
"forward", i.e. tries even harder to progress, as is symbolized by 2F (i.e. "forward" being correlated
with the "front" face).

The ninth step is that he now has more progress - mR (the right middle layer goes "up" another 90
degrees).

The tenth step is that he continues to push "forward" - 2F.

The eleventh and final step of the "body" is more success, that now the left middle layer goes "up"
90 degrees - mLi.

After this, we do the "outro", which is 2B, 2R.

Hopefully this method will help some people with memorizing this algorithm. It's best to learn on a
4x4x4 and 5x5x5 cube, and afterwards can be applied to any size cube or shape mod by simply
turning the right and left middle layers whose edge pieces need to be flipped.

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