rec.puzzles Archive

How many solutions does the Bedlam cube puzzle have?

competition/games/bedlam.cube New

New entry, edited from material collected for the archive and not yet in a released version.

Problem

How many solutions does the Bedlam cube puzzle have?
Show solution
The Bedlam cube has 19,186 solutions excluding rotations and
reflections.

-- Bent Schmidt-Nielsen <bent@world.std.com>, December 1993

Years ago there was (is?) a game out of England called Boggle
that uses mostly 5 cube pieces to make a 4X4X4 cube.  There are
19186 solutions but I have include only 3.

[ Editor: a 4x4x4 cube from 13 pieces with 19186 solutions is the
Bedlam cube described above; "Boggle" is presumably a slip of memory. ]

BOGGLE:   all pieces but 7 have 5 blocks
    _       _           _      _       _      _ _
  _|_|_    |_|_        |_|_   |X|     |X|_   |X|X|
 |_|_|_|   |_|_|_      |X|_|  |_|_    |X|_|    |_|
   |_|       |_|_|     |_|    |_|_|     |_|    |_|
    1         2         3      4        5       6
   _         _       _      _ _      _       _        _
  |_|_      |_|_    |X|_   |_|_|_   |X|_    |_|     _|_|
  |_|X|     |_|X|   |_|_|    |_|_|  |_|_|   |_|_   |X|_|
4 pieces    |_|     |_|      |_|      |_|   |X|_|  |_|
  7          8       9        A      B       C       D

X = block above;

         Y=4 _______                ____________
          __|       |              /__/__/__/__/|
       __|  | Z=4   |             /__/__/__/__/ |
    __|  |3 |       |            /__/__/__/__/  |
   |  |2 |  |_______|           /__/__/__/__/   |
   |1 |  |________|       z=4   |__|__|__|__|   / y=4
   |  |________|          z=3   |__|__|__|__|  / y=3
   |________|             z=2   |__|__|__|__| / y=2
   Y=1                    z=1   |__|__|__|__|/ y=1
                                x=1  2  3  4

        z=1     z=2     z=3    z=4
 y=4    c225    ca55    cc31    8333
 y=3    ba22    ba51    c851    8831
 y=2    bb42    da77    6a91    8999
 y=1    db47    dd47    6d44    6669

        z=1     z=2     z=3    z=4
 y=4    c4aa    c444    cc16    8666
 y=3    baa2    b514    c816    8813
 y=2    bba2    d572    5513    8933
 y=1    db77    dd72    5d92    9993

        z=1     z=2     z=3    z=4
 y=4    cc63    c233    7223    7722
 y=3    c168    1113    71b9    44b9
 y=2    c668    d688    55bb    4599
 y=1    daa8    ddaa    4dab    4559

-- Paul Krause <pkrause@micro.ti.com>, December 1997