Puzzling Asked on January 1, 2021
So, I got curious if I could solve from the cube in a cube in a cube in a cube position to the solved state just using its own algorithm. This is the one I was using:
B’ 2R2 2L2 U2 2R2 2L2 B F2 R U’ R U R2 U R2 F’ U F’ u l u’ f2 d r’ u f d2 r2
Where 2R2 and 2L2 mean to move the center slice 180 degrees and u, l, f, d, r, and b mean to move both the outer and center by a quarter turn and so forth.
I did get some interesting cases on the cube, such as one where most of the cube is solved except for 2 opposite 2×2 corners with edges swapped (I think it took 10-12 repeats of the algorithm to get into this state of edges being swapped in 2 opposite 2×2 corners), and I kept going until about the fifteenth repeat.
Then I thought that since I don’t even know if I can solve it from the cube in a cube in a cube in a cube position just using that 1 algorithm, I might as well solve it using the reduction method, because I don’t know if this property is true for 4×4 cubes.
I know that on the 3×3, you can get from any state to solved, just by using the algorithm that got you into the state. It might be only once like for the Checkerboard or Superflip patterns, or it may be multiple times as in the Cube in a Cube in a Cube, but it’s possible. I think this property might have a special name, though if it does, I don’t know it. But, is this property true of the 4×4 as well? Was it just a matter of repeating the algorithm again and again after 15 to get back to solved? Or does parity get in the way of doing that?
What I was trying to do was to get from this:
to the solved 4×4 only using this algorithm:
B’ 2R2 2L2 U2 2R2 2L2 B F2 R U’ R U R2 U R2 F’ U F’ u l u’ f2 d r’ u f d2 r2
Is that possible or does this algorithm cause parity that makes it unsolvable with just that 1 algorithm?
It is always possible to solve a cube state using its own algorithm, regardless of the cube size or the algorithm.
Here's why:
Let's name the starting state "S", and its algorithm (the one that transforms the solved state into S) "A".
There are three important points to notice about cube states and algorithms:
These may seem obvious, but with these, we can prove the bold claim from above.
If we repeatedly perform algorithm A on state S, we get a chain of states. Because of observation 1 above, we know the chain will never branch. Now if we think about what's eventually going to happen to that chain, there are only a couple of options:
Option 4 is the only possible outcome, so we know that the chain will eventually loop back to S. But we also know (from the definition of A) that you can reach state S from the solved state by performing algorithm A! From observation 2, we know that the solved state is then the only state from which S can be reached, so we have shown that the solved state must be in the chain of states reached by repeating algorithm A on state S.
Since we didn't use the dimensions of the cube or the specifics of the algorithm anywhere in the proof, this applies to all algorithms on all cubes.
Answered by Bass on January 1, 2021
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