[next] [prev] [up] Date: Sat, 18 Apr 92 23:58:42 -0700 (PDT)
[next] [prev] [up] From: Don Woods <Don.Woods@eng.sun.com >
[next] [prev] [up] Subject: Re: Some solutions to Rubik's Tangle have been found.

From: Peter Andrew Lopez <pl1x+@andrew.cmu.edu>
I love cubes
But i'll never admit it!
cube-annonymous

In addition to being self-contradicting (and misspelled), the above seems
to have nothing to do with the subject of Rubik's Tangle.

Lest this message suffer the same flaw, I'll add that I too was unable to
come up with any mathematical or intuitive method for solving the Tangle.
I solved mine by computer. (I've always been fairly good at finding ways
to prune a bushy search tree down to manageable size.) I have Tangle #1
and can confirm it has exactly two solutions (ignoring overall rotations
of the 5x5 array, of course).

I haven't had a chance to examine closely the other Tangles. How do they
differ from #1? Do they use a different pattern of connectivity on the
tiles? Do they have a different mix of the permutations? (#1 has each
4-color permutation exactly once, except for one permutation which appears
twice.) I hope they do not simply permute the colors relative to #1; that
would be dull since they would then be identical puzzles, and collecting
more than one would be silly except for the purpose of building the 10x10
combined puzzle.

-- Don.

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