Rubik's Cube Solving
Commenters discuss algorithms and strategies for solving the Rubik's Cube, debating brute-force approaches, constraint programming, state/move counts, and computational limits, with digressions to similar puzzles like N-Queens.
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Why not use Constraint Programming / Integer Programming? Provide a budget of maximum moves, seek the best possible solution.
What strategy is this solver using? Is it a brute-force approach? Are there heuristics used?
I'll make an educated guess... the advancement is knowing that if you make a machine that can bruteforce 6 sides x 2 turn directions, you can stop searching once a 20th movement is not enough to get the cube solved, and in the worst scenario, you will check ( 6 x 2 )^20 movements in total. I think that scores as test cases :P
this is not a brute force trick.. it calculate all possibilities and eliminate others using constraint theories.
Among the 2^n configurations, how many are solvable?
Took a few hours the first time. There are thousands of solutions.
It’s not 218 possibilities it’s 218 moves.
That problem is small enough to just brute force. There are only 1612800 calculations to do.
I'm having trouble following the code - does this just brute force the solution by trying all possibilities?
I guess the trick is there aren't that many possibilities, so you precomputed them all can search through the list.