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Cube-lovers, a rebirth (Hopefully)

Submitted by cubex on Thu, 06/24/2004 - 10:19.
Hi folks,

I'm sure many of you can remember the old cube-lovers mailing list. It started in 1980 and lasted until Feb 2000. Cube-lovers was the "creme deLa creme" of all cube discussions, with topics ranging from hypercubing to God's Algorithm calculations there was never anything else quite like it.

Cube-lovers seemed to breathe it's last in Feb of 2000, but cube discussions continue on the internet. Many Rubik's Cube sites have appeared on the internet but the discussions and topics were fragmented and nowadays the discussions are dominated by speed cubing. Interesting to be sure, but not quite the same as the ol' cube-lovers list.

It seems that the ftp site at MIT is no longer functioning and I am currenting trying to track down the original 26 archive files. Most likely someone has archived them somewhere and when they resurface I will post them here.

Let's try and continue things in the same spirit as cube-lovers. Suggestions for the site are welcome.

Have fun!
Mark
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Square one

Submitted by paolabp on Thu, 12/09/2004 - 19:59.
Hello, i'm a new member of this web site and i really need some help, i'm trying to find the "Square one" cube, if anyone knows where i can find it, please let me know
Thanks
Paola
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Math. oriented site...

Submitted by crepeau on Tue, 07/13/2004 - 21:17.
It is a great pleasure to see the rebirth of this list. I am among the slow-cubists in this world who find more challenge in such things as God's algorithm.

I was wondering if anyone has ever build a bi-directional tree search for solving specific cube positions.
Let me explain.

Suppose one starts with a solved cube (3x3x3) and find all the configurations after one rotation, and so on say until 10 or 11 rotations. The resulting tree will contain a large number of nodes, but not completely unreasonable.
Now suppose you wish to find the shortest solution for a specific configuration. You may start building another tree similar to the above and look for collisions between nodes of the two trees. After exploring say 10 or 11 levels of the tree it is very likely that the two trees will connect and the shortest path can be obtained.

Anybody ever tried that ?
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That's the basic algorithm be

Submitted by rokicki on Tue, 01/24/2006 - 19:12.
That's the basic algorithm behind all optimal solvers, including mine, Reid's, and others. The proof is in the pudding (what data structures do you use, do you project the space in any way, etc.)
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