{"id":582,"date":"2006-08-24T07:20:04","date_gmt":"2006-08-24T12:20:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=582"},"modified":"2006-08-24T15:46:07","modified_gmt":"2006-08-24T20:46:07","slug":"mefferts-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=582","title":{"rendered":"Meffert&#8217;s Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is what Meffert&#8217;s Challenge looks like solved:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"images\/meffert_solved.jpg\" alt=\"Meffert's Challenge, Solved\"\/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>And this is what mine looks like.  All the time:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"images\/meffert_hosed.jpg\" alt=\"Meffert's Challenge, Hosed\"\/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Meffert&#8217;s Challenge <em>should<\/em> be a good deal easier than Rubik&#8217;s Cube.  The number of permutations is clearly lower, since there are fewer &#8220;pieces&#8221; moving about.  The problem is the thing changes shape as you work with it.  In the first picture you see a face with lettering on it.  There is an identical twin on the opposite side.  My brain really wants to think of these as north \/ south poles on this globe, which is a mistake since they move around.  You can get these two faces right next to each other.  In fact, there is no move you can make that will not change the position of these two faces relative to one another.  To put it another way: There is no equator division.<\/p>\n<p>I had the same problem with Sqare-1. (which has an online version you can play <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mud.ca\/puzzler\/JPuzzler\/JPuzzler.html#\">here<\/a>.)  The lack of symetry just kills me. I can&#8217;t get me head around it.  <\/p>\n<p>Even allowing for my increasing senility as I <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/heatherblog\/wordpress\/?p=265\">ascend into my dotage<\/a>, I can&#8217;t help thinking that the puzzle should not be as hard as it is.  I can&#8217;t even make headway with it.  I can&#8217;t even come up with any sort of process that will <em>lead<\/em> to a solution.  I just spin the blasted thing until I go cross-eyed. <\/p>\n<p>I usually have a puzzle in reach for when I need to do something like a large recompile, which will occupy my computer for a few minutes.  These five-minute slices of time are annoying because they are too short to really make use of, but too long to spend idle.  So, I keep a Rubik&#8217;s Cube or one of it&#8217;s decendants handy to keep my hands busy while I wait.  But this one is really pissing me off. Arg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is what Meffert&#8217;s Challenge looks like solved: And this is what mine looks like. All the time: Meffert&#8217;s Challenge should be a good deal easier than Rubik&#8217;s Cube. The number of permutations is clearly lower, since there are fewer &#8220;pieces&#8221; moving about. The problem is the thing changes shape as you work with it. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nerd-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}