This repository provides a mathematical formalization of Rubik's cubes. We prove the following results:
PRubik.isSolvable_iff_isValid: a Rubik's cube is solvable iff it is "valid", i.e. it has no flipped edges, swapped pieces, or rotated corners.Rubik.card: there are 2¹² × 3⁸ × 8! × 11 = 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 solvable Rubik's cubes.
We also provide Stickers.toRubik, which assembles a Rubik's cube from its stickers and automatically deduces its validity.
Our most basic types are Axis and Orientation, which abstract the geometry of 3D space. An orientation represents one of six axis-aligned directions - as such, it can also be used to represent one of the six colors of the stickers.
An EdgePiece consists of two orientations with distinct axes. Since orientations represent both position and colors, an EdgePiece can dually represent a particular edge sticker, or a particular position for it. Similarly, a CornerPiece consists of three orientations with pairwise distinct axes, and it can represent a particular corner sticker, or a position for it.
A PRubik or "pre-Rubik's cube" consists of a Perm EdgePiece and a Perm CornerPiece, which are to be interpreted as returning the given sticker color at any given position. These functions are subject to the conditions that edge pieces in the same edge are mapped to edge pieces in the same edge, and likewise for corner pieces. There is no solvability requirement. We can define a group structure on PRubik by simply multiplying the corresponding permutations together. We define three group homomorphisms edgeFlip, parity, and cornerRotation, which combine to form the Rubik's cube invariant. A PRubik is said to be valid when it lies in the kernel of this homomorphism, and Rubik is the subtype which corresponds to this kernel.
Each orientation can be assigned a particular PRubik.ofOrientation which corresponds to turning that face. A list of Orientation can be performed as Moves, and we say that a PRubik is solvable when it can be assembled from the solved state from such a sequence.
There are various possible ways this project could be expanded upon or generalized:
- Solving smaller (2 × 2 × 2) or larger Rubik's cubes
- Solving other twisty puzzles, like the megaminx, pyraminx, ...
- Solving higher-dimensional Rubik's cubes