perhaps only 1 discounting symmetry as there is 1 fully solved cube
I don’t see how ”there is 1 fully solved cube” would even hint at “perhaps only 1”
Also, there isn’t only 1. https://www.cube20.org/: “Distance-20 positions are both rare and plentiful; they are rarer than one in a billion positions, yet there are probably more than one hundred million such positions. We do not yet know exactly how many there are”
A fun thing to think about is if you’re allowing generalizations to more than 3x3x3, there can be more than one fully-solved configuration. A 4x4x4 cube for example has 4 identical centre pieces on each face where the centre piece of a 3x3x3 cube is. I’m pretty sure these 4 pieces can be in any configuration as long as they are the correct colour and the cube is still completely solved. Likewise each edge piece in a 3x3x3 is replaced in a 4x4x4 with two “wings” which can be swapped without changing the fact that the cube is solved.
That’s interesting. I originally thought these were isomorphic to rotating the entire cube but of course that doesn’t take into account cases where they rotate relative to each other
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I don’t see how ”there is 1 fully solved cube” would even hint at “perhaps only 1”
Also, there isn’t only 1. https://www.cube20.org/: “Distance-20 positions are both rare and plentiful; they are rarer than one in a billion positions, yet there are probably more than one hundred million such positions. We do not yet know exactly how many there are”
A fun thing to think about is if you’re allowing generalizations to more than 3x3x3, there can be more than one fully-solved configuration. A 4x4x4 cube for example has 4 identical centre pieces on each face where the centre piece of a 3x3x3 cube is. I’m pretty sure these 4 pieces can be in any configuration as long as they are the correct colour and the cube is still completely solved. Likewise each edge piece in a 3x3x3 is replaced in a 4x4x4 with two “wings” which can be swapped without changing the fact that the cube is solved.
A 3×3×3 already has multiple such solutions. The center squares can rotate over 90° without visible changes. See https://de.speedcube.com.au/blogs/speedcubing-solutions/how-...
That’s interesting. I originally thought these were isomorphic to rotating the entire cube but of course that doesn’t take into account cases where they rotate relative to each other