I guess Fewest Moves is indeed a puzzle too. And any creation of new algorithms. I'm not sure what I'd say Speedsolving is. Not a puzzle, probably a sport in the same way that chess is.
Duncan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tyson Mao" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 9:27 AM Subject: Re: [Speed cubing group] Rubik's cube the 'puzzle' > The way we solve the cube, it's not a puzzle. The Rubik's Cube, when > solved without being taught, is indeed a puzzle. The fact that the > Rubik's Cube has 12 additional orientation combinations for the centers > (did I get that number right) is pretty trivial. If they want to > define puzzle that way, fine, we just draw some arrows. > > If anything, I think just citing the number of Rubik's Cube > competitions compared to Sudoku competitions, and I think we can rest > our case. > > Tyson Mao > MSC #631 > California Institute of Technology > > On Jan 5, 2006, at 1:21 AM, Jasmine Lee wrote: > >> Today a friend showed me a passage in her Sudoku book which claimed >> that >> the Rubik's Cube is NOT a puzzle. Their claim is that anything which >> has >> more than one solved state is not a puzzle. Their reason is that >> because >> the centres on a standard Rubik's Cube can have various different >> orientations and we still consider it 'solved', then it isn't a puzzle. >> By this definition only supercubes are puzzles. >> >> I thought the book sounded pretty crap. My friend didn't necessarily >> believe it either, but had told me about it because she knew I'd be >> interested in anything that mentioned cubes. Maybe the author was just >> trying to convince sudoku solvers that they are cooler than cubers?? ;) >> >> What does everyone else think? >> >> BTW, I consulted Wikipedia to see what it had to say on the matter: >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puzzle (You'll see that the cube is almost >> the definition of puzzle in Wikipedia! Well, not quite, but you'll see >> what I mean if you follow this link.) >> >> Jasmine >> http://speedcuber.blogspot.com >> >> -- >> http://www.fastmail.fm - Access all of your messages and folders >> wherever you are >> >> >> >> >> Yahoo! Groups Links >> >> >> >> >> >> > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/speedsolvingrubikscube/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
