Talk:Void Cube

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This was a labor of love; I'm fascinated by small, intricate mechanisms, and think I have some useful ability to do tech. writing for popular readership. Again, no references; there might be a YouTube video. What I wrote is based on personal experience with a high-quality pirated Void Cube, bought when I simply could not find a a dealer who carried the genuine article. I hope to buy one, though.

Gentosha, who makes licensed Void Cubes, sells through Amazon Japan; I was tempted to put that detail into the text, but it seemed too commercial (although it was information that (for me) was hard to come by). I've installed the Babelfish translator into Firefox, and it works well enough on Japanese that I expect that I could buy from [Amazon.jp]

I well realize that on at least two counts, what I contributed might not survive for long as submitted. For one, the description is long. For another, advice on disassembling and reassembly is likely to be too far off-topic, and I won't cry in my beer if it's removed. (I saved a copy in my archives at home, and could submit it to the twistypuzzles.com forums.)

I also hope to buy a Void Cube molded of white plastic; taking good photos of exotically-shaped black plastic parts is not easy. Eventually, I hope to post good photos of the internal mechanism, maybe even with callouts.

Needless to say, a description of this mechanism just begs for some good photos! Yes, I do know.

People who aren't interested in mechanisms (nearly everyone, it seems) are likely to utterly fail to appreciate how interesting and remarkably ingenious this mechanism is. Rubik's mechanism is exceptionally clever, but this, imho, is even more so. Both the original Cube and this wonder look like physical impossibilities at first; rare ingenuity has made them possible. It's for the people who really want to know what's inside that I wrote this. That's also why I included advice on disassembly and reassembly. (A while back, the YouTube video disassembly procedure was brutal and crude!)

Regards,66.92.74.189 (talk) 16:39, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I have added a picture of disassembled void cube. And I do agree that this is a beautiful and incredible mechanism. Zrowny (talk) 17:31, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Shouldent this actually be easier than a normal rubix cube, since you can solve it the same way without regard for center squares? all that talk of 'parity' meant nothing to me, it just seems like you would solve it the same way as a rubix cube, just with grehy ceter tiles. 152.18.54.167 (talk) 23:09, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The void cube is easier to solve than the normal cube in one sense. On average a random problem on the void cube may be solved in about one fewer turns than a random problem on the regular cube( ca. 20 quarter turns for the void cube and ca. 21 quarter turns for the regular cube as shown by computer searches). Since the difficulty increases exponentially with depth the regular cube is nine to ten times more difficult for a computer to solve than the void cube. For the human solver the void cube is more difficult since one encounters odd parity positions not seen on the regular cube. This necessitates memorizing additional maneuvers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.137.218.91 (talk) 16:15, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

What it means?

... swaps 20 cubes in five, odd parity, four cycles

OK, there are 20 cubes. I may suppose, that those 20 cubes are divided on 5 groups by 4. But what means odd parity? I know odd parity permutations, but I don't know odd parity cycles. Jumpow (talk) 18:19, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

A 4-cylce is swapping 4 pieces in a row A->B->C->D->A which is an odd-parity permutation (because it's made up of 3 swaps). Turning the whole cube 90° round its vertical axis means that you have 5 piece groups à 4: top layer edges, top layer corners, middle layer edges, bottom layer edges, bottom layer corners. The pieces in each of those groups go around in an A->B->C->D->A pattern. Doing 5 odd permutations results in an odd permutation. Judith Sunrise (talk) 01:10, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Number of scrambles?

How many are there? 31.111.17.48 (talk) 18:24, 9 April 2024 (UTC)