# 4d and 5d rubik's cubes

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If your itching for a challenge, I suggest you try your hand at these. I'm pretty rubbish with ordinary rubik's cubes anyway:-p , but I thought I'd give the 4d one a go. The maths inviolved is pretty interesting too.

The web addresses from which you can access both of these are as follows;

For 4d:http://www.superliminal.com/cube/cube.htm

For 5d:http://www.gravitation3d.com/magiccube5d/

Now dont forget to have fun:D !

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I thought time was the fifth dimension...

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Mathmematically, you can create and deal with an arbitrary number of extra dimensions(as I'm sure any maths expert will tell you). This puzzle is not attempting to describe reality, so time does not necessarily need to be modelled as a dimension(if at all). At the moment I'm just trying to familiarise myself with the problem, and the different twists that can be performed. It's likely I may give up along the way ikn trying to solve the 4d puzzle, but hopefully I wont.

Btw hav u tried it yet ecoli?

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Right. Oh, and time is the 4th dimention.

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Right. Oh, and time is the 4th dimention.
Time is a temporal dimension, the rest are spatial, so you could say these are 4th and 5th spatial dimension cubes.
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Ohhhhhhh. So you can have as many spaital dimentions as you want, and after that it's temporal?

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Could you theoretically have more than one temporal dimension?

If so, I would like to call them Time, and Chime.

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Ohhhhhhh. So you can have as many spaital[/i'] dimentions as you want, and after that it's temporal?
I believe M-theory uses ten spatial dimensions plus one temporal. You can theoretically work with more but I'm not sure if any current theories support that.
Could you theoretically have more than one temporal dimension?

If so' date=' I would like to call them Time, and Chime.[/quote']Take that one up with the Temporal Committee.

There are theories that say motion is not derivative from time and may in fact be more fundamental. Perhaps motion is a temporal dimension, the first temporal dimension.

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I believe M-theory uses ten spatial dimensions plus one temporal. You can theoretically work with more but I'm not sure if any current theories support that.

Take that one up with the Temporal Committee.

I remember one of my teachers a while ago told us that it mathematically it was possible to have up to 26 dimensions(that was a few years ago, it might be more now). I think there was this fractal created using it as well. Can anyone verify or dispel this?

Anyway this was a thread was posted in the brain teasers and puzzles section, not mathematicss even though discussion of dimensions is an interesting backdrop. Has anyone tried the puzzle yet?? I have and I confess I'm struggling, I'm just trying to get used to it when I try it. There are 24 different ways to twist the "cube" and that's just from the central face/cube.

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I've been working at this for about twenty minutes, now...

All I've accomplished is the feeling that my retinas are about to detach.

Naw, I've figured out how it all moves, I just have to solve this bugger while the same question reels in my mind, "Why did I do this to myself?"

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• 4 weeks later...

abskebabs;

Mathematically you can have spaces of any (integer) dimension. [you can also have fractal dimension but that is a different story]. A 26-dimensional space if fine. In fact (bosonic) string theory insists on 26 dimensions. We can talk about that somewhere else if your interested.

As for the Rubik cube, the mathematics of the problem is group theory.

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im not sure i understand this, they've done well to depict four dimensions in a 3d environment, but shouldnt it have eight faces?

this just isnt how i see four dimensions

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I remember one of my teachers a while ago told us that it mathematically it was possible to have up to 26 dimensions.
That's complete bollocks. Take a simple equation $(y+1)^2 + (x+2)^2 =3$, that is two dimensional. $(y+1)^2 + (x+2)^2 + (x+3)^2 = 4$ is three dimensional. $(y+1)^2 + (x+2)^2 + (x+3)^2 (t+4)^2 = 5$ is four dimensional, et cetera et cetera. The only way that 26 could be the limit is if I were afraid of running out of letters (wich isn't going to happen).

Maths can even be done in infinite dimensional space, although that is quite beyond me.

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Maths can even be done in infinite dimensional space' date=' although that is quite beyond me.[/quote']

In physics infinite dimensional spaces occur very naturally. In deed I use them all the time.

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In physics infinite dimensional spaces occur very naturally. In deed I use them all the time.

"use"?

you must teach me how to travel perpandicular to reality.

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• 1 month later...
im not sure i understand this' date=' they've done well to depict four dimensions in a 3d environment, but shouldnt it have eight faces?

this just isnt how i see four dimensions[/quote']

It's impossible to imagine 4 spatial dimensions, so the magic cube is projected down to 3 dimensions, and then to 2 dimensions to display on the screen. A 4D Cube does indeed have 8 faces, but just as you cannot see the 6th face on the back of a 3D cube, neither can you see the 8th face (represented as a 3x3x3 cube in magic cube). If you press Ctrl and click the 4D cube rotates to show you the 8th face.

Read the FAQ on the magic cube website for more detailed info.

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