So, if a graphic designer or illustrator doesn't completely understand all the mathematics of a Rubik's Cube, I can accept that. But why don't they just take a cube, scramble it and draw the combination they've just made?
I assume they aren't even aware of the fact that there exists such a thing as a wrong Rubik's Cube. I mean, why should they even care? They're still getting payed anyway
Well, I know of one graphic designer who did just that. She was asked to depict a shelf full of assorted game and puzzles. She knew nothing about how a Rubik's Cube was actually coloured and she bought one, asked me to scramble it for her and drew the result. The finished artwork formed a display in a library's reading section and looked pretty cool, I must say.
The most amazing thing about all this, in my opinion, is that all they need to do to avoid this is get a Rubik's cube (or visit an online one) and scramble it. It avoids the problem entirely. No analysis of valid cubes involved.
There is, however, an element of aesthetic color placement. Even with something as seemingly arbitrary as a scrambled rubix cube will, in the hands of advertisers and graphic designers, be optimized and tweaked to have an eye-pleasing and suitably "random-looking" appearance, and that sort of aesthetic-at-a-glance is generally considered more valuable than having true-to-life accuracy. Not that i think it's a particularly valuable investment of time and effort, mind you, but that's just how designers and advertisers operate. Edit: it's not imposible that, in some cases, the orginal mockup was based on an actual cube layout, only to have a designer chirp in and say "it would look a lot more balanced if that square was red instead," thereby invalidating the entire cube.
*@Dr. Hiram Temple,* Rubks cubes never look random enough. With 9 spaces on a side and only 6 colours, you keep getting bunches of the same colour next to each-other.
It's a shame most of the world doesn't care about whether designs on signs/shits/buckles etc. are actually feasable, like the horrible football sign. Luckily we have heroes like Matt to set these abominations right, keep up the good work!
The best secret santa gift I ever received was a Rubiks cube...wasn't into them at the time, now have a storage box full and dabble in some pyraminxs and mirror cubes
When I was in high school, I had my cube mixed up by some friends. Since they got bored to see me successfully get it back correctly, one time they switch a block randomly. When I was solving it, I've notice a strange behavior in how colors should end up... He would be great to explain why some combination of cube aren't possible with a Rubik's cube ^^
I'm not a cuber but; Given that it is possible to, without messing up the rest of the cube, 1. rotate an edge piece, 2. rotate a corner piece, 3. swap two edge pieces, and, 4. swap two corner pieces. then solving a cube could be stated as: Swap a corner or edge piece with the piece that belongs. Rotate moved piece to correct orientation. Repeat for remaining pieces. Therefore all positions are solvable. So, either all positions are solvable, or one or more of the givens are incorrect. Which is it?
There’s no legal way to rotate a single corner, flip a single edge, or swap only two edges. If you encounter a 3x3 that has any of these problems or even a combination of them. Then the cube is unsolvable, because you cannot legally perform those actions (you gotta take it apart)
I so far have a 100% success rate with rubiks cube presents. It all started my last birthday... I like collecting and solving different kinds of cubes. I'm a puzzler rather than a speeder so I mainly have many different ones and I solve one about once per week. It's very much just a side hobby. Despite this, my family got me 2 rubiks cube related presents. One of them was a mug with a solved pattern on it so it has to be true, and the other one was a tin with toffees that happened to be solvable. However, it's clear the creator didn't put in too much efford since it was 6 moves away from solved. Still, I prefer it when they just buy a cheap cube and pick patterns that are able on them.
I find that there is another form of "impossible" cube. Cubes that have a single image that spreads over one face of the cube almost always results in the centre portion of the image being out of sync with the rest of the face once the cube is solved. I realize that there is probably a way to work out how to rotate the centre portion properly, but it is a little beyond my abilities these days.
I've always wanted someone to make a spin-1/2 Rubik's Cube. That is, like an electron, you have to turn it around 720 degrees instead of 360 degrees before you get back to the same position. One of those could have some of the oddities in these pictures, certainly.
Hi Matt Parker, I have a great question for a great mathematician. I can't find other cubers who can figure out the math: We need some statistics in blindfolded solving. When solving blindfolded, we solve one sticker at a time, and this involves one or more cycles (like the math james grime talks about in a video) for edges and corners. For example, you might have to solve 7 corner-stickers (the last corner will solve itself), but if you need more cycles, you will have to solve 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 or 14 corner-stickers. So when you have to memorize the solution, you will need a string of information with length 0-14 to solve the corners. What is the probability distribution for each length? What is the chance of getting an odd number of targets (this is called parity, and it is believed to be 50%)?
In fact, there were three mistakes on that mug: 1. The five yellow corners you already pointed out 2. Two red and green edge pieces 3. There are two corner pieces, which have to be identical because both have blue and yellow on them arranged in the same way A terrible gift. Somebody must really hate that dude.
This reminds me of The Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes, wherein the great detective says that he doesn't care to play chess, but loves deducing facts about games in progress from the current board state.
I do like the little tippy-tapping you do on the table with your fingers at the end there. You do it every now and then in your videos and everytime it reminds me of the 'frenchman' in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who tapped his gloved hands on the castle's... balustrade? I don't remember the word for it, but against the castle nontheless.
A penrose cube has 3 pairs of same coloured sides which curve onto each other! Adds a bit of difficulty I think as I think you might run into parity issues!
I collect mechanical computer keyboard and have had a few keyboard related gifts , one of witch was a keyboard mug that was both ANSI and ISO at the same time WITH a fat ass enter from the PC AT days!
How much of a cube do you have to see to check if an edge has been flipped or a corner has been twisted? For that matter is there an easy way to check even if you can see the whole cube?
John Bennett I think you'd have to see the whole thing, be a useful it could always be the hidden peices that are turned to wrong way if that makes sense
For corners, pick two colors that are opposite each other. All corners will have one (and only one) of those colors. Check how many corners you have to twist clockwise to put either of these colors in either of these faces, and how many you have to twist counterclockwise, and subtract. You should end with zero, three, or six. Otherwise you have a twisted corner. Edges are similar but they are a bit trickier because not all edges share the same colors.
Here's an interesting rubik's cube solvability puzzle you might be interested in: You see a cube sitting on a table, and from just the three faces that are visible, it _appears_ to be solved. However, once you pick it up and look at the other three faces, you see that in fact it is _not_ solved. What's the maximum number of squares that could be the wrong colour?
Cvn A10: If you think so, I invite you to get a rubiks cube and solve it so that the front three faces look solved, and the back three faces have 21 incorrect squares... How exactly do you think that will look?
the lesson i am taking away is that if you're a graphic designer and want to use a rubik's cube, get a real one and scramble it, and base your design off that
Matt Parker: I'm not sure if you're familiar with the nature of a square, but you're only gonna get 4 corners Rest of RUclips: *Mindlessly watches it without a second thought* Me: (Commenting to myself quietly) I wonder if that's right? Well, I know that a square is a quadrilateral with all sides being equal in length. A geometrical square has a total of approximately 4 right angles which are essentially 4 individual corners, so each side of a square should only have 4 corners. Hm, that makes sense then. *Notices everyone is staring at me because I'm actually questioning what I've been taught* Just another day on RUclips 🙄 __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Source of the Copypasta: www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart/comments/7gi13y/just_another_day_in_high_school/
so, that cube you shuffled to look like the belt buckle? did you perform an actual shuffle or take it apart and put it back together again? cuz it still might not be solvable if you did that last thing...
How is it even possible for there to be this many impossible cubes on logos? I mean all you have to do is take an actual Rubiks Cube, twist and turn it a little bit and then copy that. XD
I don't understand why these companies can't just take a scrambled rubiks cube and copy it, there are even cube scramblers online so it is not even hard to do.
The "9-faced cube" could very well have been a rhombic dodecahedron with 3 of the colors hidden. But it's a stock image, so that's not exactly a reasonable assumption.
DumbSchoolKid Well yellow being opposite of white may be traditional or standard but not *necessary* to make a Rubik’s Cube possible. What Matt is focusing on are depictions of Rubik’s Cubes that would be impossible to exist and solve.
“I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the nature OF A SQUARE” 😂
alasdairhurst No they have 6 parker square faces
o==[]::::::::::::::::>
Traumatized by them, Parker decided to fill his life with squares.
Finally realizing that he needed more squares in his life, he decided to play Minecraft forever.
We know Parker squares more than real squares.
Thinking about it, it's actually possible that Parker squares have 5 corners and Parker cubes 9 faces.
So, if a graphic designer or illustrator doesn't completely understand all the mathematics of a Rubik's Cube, I can accept that. But why don't they just take a cube, scramble it and draw the combination they've just made?
Even simpler than that, they can use one of the billions of unsolved cube photos on Google Images.
I assume they aren't even aware of the fact that there exists such a thing as a wrong Rubik's Cube. I mean, why should they even care? They're still getting payed anyway
T Perm well I guess that explains why they are still unsolved lmao
because who gives a *FLYING SHIT* about accuracy when it's such a nerdy topic
i mean come on, graphic designers aren't speccy losers the rest of us
Well, I know of one graphic designer who did just that. She was asked to depict a shelf full of assorted game and puzzles. She knew nothing about how a Rubik's Cube was actually coloured and she bought one, asked me to scramble it for her and drew the result. The finished artwork formed a display in a library's reading section and looked pretty cool, I must say.
The most amazing thing about all this, in my opinion, is that all they need to do to avoid this is get a Rubik's cube (or visit an online one) and scramble it. It avoids the problem entirely. No analysis of valid cubes involved.
There is, however, an element of aesthetic color placement. Even with something as seemingly arbitrary as a scrambled rubix cube will, in the hands of advertisers and graphic designers, be optimized and tweaked to have an eye-pleasing and suitably "random-looking" appearance, and that sort of aesthetic-at-a-glance is generally considered more valuable than having true-to-life accuracy. Not that i think it's a particularly valuable investment of time and effort, mind you, but that's just how designers and advertisers operate.
Edit: it's not imposible that, in some cases, the orginal mockup was based on an actual cube layout, only to have a designer chirp in and say "it would look a lot more balanced if that square was red instead," thereby invalidating the entire cube.
*@Dr. Hiram Temple,* Rubks cubes never look random enough. With 9 spaces on a side and only 6 colours, you keep getting bunches of the same colour next to each-other.
Parker cubes have 5 yellow corners and 9 faces
They actually have eleven yellow corners, since they have two parker squares of which one is even more parker-ish than the other.
It's a shame most of the world doesn't care about whether designs on signs/shits/buckles etc. are actually feasable, like the horrible football sign. Luckily we have heroes like Matt to set these abominations right, keep up the good work!
Like seriously just take an actual cube, scramble it, and make the image from that lol. Solvable guaranteed
Jelmer Q ikr
Designs on shits lmao
Shits?
The best secret santa gift I ever received was a Rubiks cube...wasn't into them at the time, now have a storage box full and dabble in some pyraminxs and mirror cubes
You mean trubik's cube?
When I was in high school, I had my cube mixed up by some friends. Since they got bored to see me successfully get it back correctly, one time they switch a block randomly. When I was solving it, I've notice a strange behavior in how colors should end up...
He would be great to explain why some combination of cube aren't possible with a Rubik's cube ^^
I'm not a cuber but;
Given that it is possible to, without messing up the rest of the cube, 1. rotate an edge piece, 2. rotate a corner piece, 3. swap two edge pieces, and, 4. swap two corner pieces.
then solving a cube could be stated as:
Swap a corner or edge piece with the piece that belongs.
Rotate moved piece to correct orientation.
Repeat for remaining pieces.
Therefore all positions are solvable.
So, either all positions are solvable, or one or more of the givens are incorrect.
Which is it?
I already know most of the answer, but I think it could be interesting to share it to everyone in an educative and funny video ^^
There’s no legal way to rotate a single corner, flip a single edge, or swap only two edges.
If you encounter a 3x3 that has any of these problems or even a combination of them. Then the cube is unsolvable, because you cannot legally perform those actions (you gotta take it apart)
Chris Pi Mathologer has a nice video about it, I believe :)
@Sammi N Ah OK. Thanks.
Things to make and do in the 4th dimension:
* Convince Matt that 4d Rubik's hypercube is fun
It is, I've done it and my name is on superliminal.com/cube/halloffame.htm (#337)
There was a little déjà vu at the end there.
2:20 I died :D
I know, Parker lecturing people on that nature of squares? Ironic.
"I'm not sure if you're familiar with the nature of the square"
Hahahahahahahaha!!!
Was the Secret Santa done properly, though?
the cake was actually correct but the mug wasnt
i thought it's a numberphile reference
(It was!)
It's kind of rich hearing "I'm not sure if you’re familiar with the nature of a square" from the namesake of the most famous square on the Internet.
My coworker just gave me a Sudoku cube, which I'm pretty stoked about, the numbers add another level of complexity.
That's awesome
Can we send you scrambled Rubik's cubes to reverse engineer through your portable fax machine?
I so far have a 100% success rate with rubiks cube presents.
It all started my last birthday... I like collecting and solving different kinds of cubes. I'm a puzzler rather than a speeder so I mainly have many different ones and I solve one about once per week. It's very much just a side hobby.
Despite this, my family got me 2 rubiks cube related presents.
One of them was a mug with a solved pattern on it so it has to be true, and the other one was a tin with toffees that happened to be solvable. However, it's clear the creator didn't put in too much efford since it was 6 moves away from solved. Still, I prefer it when they just buy a cheap cube and pick patterns that are able on them.
I find that there is another form of "impossible" cube. Cubes that have a single image that spreads over one face of the cube almost always results in the centre portion of the image being out of sync with the rest of the face once the cube is solved. I realize that there is probably a way to work out how to rotate the centre portion properly, but it is a little beyond my abilities these days.
2:29 correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that cube also have two pieces that go yellow blue counterclockwise?
if you twist the bottom one it matches up with the top
That's correct. I was thinking the same thing.
AND TWO OF THE SAME COLOR ON A CORNER
I was given a Rubik's cube Jigsaw puzzle. There was a piece missing. :-(
I GET IT
I've always wanted someone to make a spin-1/2 Rubik's Cube. That is, like an electron, you have to turn it around 720 degrees instead of 360 degrees before you get back to the same position. One of those could have some of the oddities in these pictures, certainly.
iabervon hm that’d be pretty cool! You’d have to work out what happens though to the faces, number of centers, etc.
also probably be quite hard too!
Hi Matt Parker, I have a great question for a great mathematician. I can't find other cubers who can figure out the math: We need some statistics in blindfolded solving. When solving blindfolded, we solve one sticker at a time, and this involves one or more cycles (like the math james grime talks about in a video) for edges and corners. For example, you might have to solve 7 corner-stickers (the last corner will solve itself), but if you need more cycles, you will have to solve 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 or 14 corner-stickers. So when you have to memorize the solution, you will need a string of information with length 0-14 to solve the corners. What is the probability distribution for each length? What is the chance of getting an odd number of targets (this is called parity, and it is believed to be 50%)?
1:10, that reminds me of my uncle's Two-tone Rubik's cube. (instead of colors it used highly contrasting patterns for its tiles)
The mug also has 2 corners with blue followed by yellow in the clockwise direction.
I'm not even a cuber and that second image had an immediately threatening aura
In fact, there were three mistakes on that mug:
1. The five yellow corners you already pointed out
2. Two red and green edge pieces
3. There are two corner pieces, which have to be identical because both have blue and yellow on them arranged in the same way
A terrible gift. Somebody must really hate that dude.
2:25 the. Two yellow blue corners are also both is the same direction (cw/ccw) which you pointed out in the previous video
At 2:00 out of the 5 corners on the mug's cube that have a yellow face, you can see on two of them that the yellow is clockwise from blue.
More impossible Parker cubes !!!!
This reminds me of The Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes, wherein the great detective says that he doesn't care to play chess, but loves deducing facts about games in progress from the current board state.
This video is basically just Matt Parker roasting a whole bunch of people with the use of sarcasm and it's hilarious as hell
also if enough of the cude is shown you can work out if it's impossible due to stuff like edge flips, corner twist, two edge swaps ect
Number 1 has five red corner pieces :p
I do like the little tippy-tapping you do on the table with your fingers at the end there. You do it every now and then in your videos and everytime it reminds me of the 'frenchman' in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who tapped his gloved hands on the castle's... balustrade? I don't remember the word for it, but against the castle nontheless.
A penrose cube has 3 pairs of same coloured sides which curve onto each other! Adds a bit of difficulty I think as I think you might run into parity issues!
if you were to color a drawing of a Rubik's cube with six different colors randomly, what would be the probability of getting a solvable cube?
what if you bought a rubik cube and mixed it up then returned it? would you still get your money back
🎨 *Hey Graphics Designers!* PROTIP 👇😎
• get a Rubik's™ cube they cost $10 at The Retail Store®
• mix it up
•✨ *_draw the mixed up cube_* ✨
I collect mechanical computer keyboard and have had a few keyboard related gifts , one of witch was a keyboard mug that was both ANSI and ISO at the same time WITH a fat ass enter from the PC AT days!
At the last one the L/U corner also id red and orange
How much of a cube do you have to see to check if an edge has been flipped or a corner has been twisted? For that matter is there an easy way to check even if you can see the whole cube?
John Bennett I think you'd have to see the whole thing, be a useful it could always be the hidden peices that are turned to wrong way if that makes sense
For corners, pick two colors that are opposite each other. All corners will have one (and only one) of those colors. Check how many corners you have to twist clockwise to put either of these colors in either of these faces, and how many you have to twist counterclockwise, and subtract. You should end with zero, three, or six. Otherwise you have a twisted corner. Edges are similar but they are a bit trickier because not all edges share the same colors.
msolec2000 - Thanks for the answer.
Here's an interesting rubik's cube solvability puzzle you might be interested in:
You see a cube sitting on a table, and from just the three faces that are visible, it _appears_ to be solved. However, once you pick it up and look at the other three faces, you see that in fact it is _not_ solved. What's the maximum number of squares that could be the wrong colour?
obviously 18
obviously 21 - super easy
Cvn A10: If you think so, I invite you to get a rubiks cube and solve it so that the front three faces look solved, and the back three faces have 21 incorrect squares... How exactly do you think that will look?
2:23 there is also two red and green edges
the lesson i am taking away is that if you're a graphic designer and want to use a rubik's cube, get a real one and scramble it, and base your design off that
I appreciate how the last second of the video is just "Um...".
I once got a tissues box as a present, which was a Rubik's cube with 6 identical faces. I got quite disappointed by that even at a pretty young age.
Matt Parker: I'm not sure if you're familiar with the nature of a square, but you're only gonna get 4 corners
Rest of RUclips: *Mindlessly watches it without a second thought*
Me: (Commenting to myself quietly) I wonder if that's right? Well, I know that a square is a quadrilateral with all sides being equal in length. A geometrical square has a total of approximately 4 right angles which are essentially 4 individual corners, so each side of a square should only have 4 corners. Hm, that makes sense then.
*Notices everyone is staring at me because I'm actually questioning what I've been taught*
Just another day on RUclips 🙄
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Source of the Copypasta: www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart/comments/7gi13y/just_another_day_in_high_school/
Well, you have to question the definition of a square, else your're just like the other sheeple.
Approximately 4 right angles? Lmao
Actually at 2:03 you can tell that the cake is not possible because it has a double yellow edge (you can barely see the other face)
Maybe them not working as far as solvibility is due to licensing. If it isn't a depiction of a real one they probably don't have to pay royalites.
Nope, as long as it doesn't say "Rubiks" or any other brand, no royalties would have to be paid
The mug also has 2 red/green edges
the mug also had a yellow-white corner which is impossible
so, that cube you shuffled to look like the belt buckle? did you perform an actual shuffle or take it apart and put it back together again?
cuz it still might not be solvable if you did that last thing...
Yellow sometimes looks like white...maybe its a white corner on the last one 😜
Is there any merch of solved cubes? Not solveable, but solved outright.
2:20 THERE ARE TWO RED-GREEN EDGES
I wrote this before looking at the comments
How is it even possible for there to be this many impossible cubes on logos? I mean all you have to do is take an actual Rubiks Cube, twist and turn it a little bit and then copy that. XD
the mug also has two red and green corners
I assume you mean edges and one of them is green orange
true. My bad.
At 1:00 is that a rhombic dodecahedron?
Matt, please de-interlace video before uploading, or change setting in you camera to shoot in progressive format.
Why don't people just scramble a cube and take a picture of it or copy the image?
Whaat a buunch of Parker Cubes™.
I don't understand why these companies can't just take a scrambled rubiks cube and copy it, there are even cube scramblers online so it is not even hard to do.
Because that would make sense
More Impossible Parker cubes!!!
hey your mug has also two red and green pices
We need digital Rubik's hypercube.
superliminal.com/cube/cube.htm
A 4d cube has 8 faces and it's still not posible
A tesseract (4D cube) has 8 *cells.*
It has *24* faces.
megaminx has five yellow corners
The "9-faced cube" could very well have been a rhombic dodecahedron with 3 of the colors hidden.
But it's a stock image, so that's not exactly a reasonable assumption.
More like RUBBISH cubes!
In the first image there are 5 red corners. Also not possible
whats with all the interlacing artifacts?
1:46 Correct, in fact, a 4D Rubik's hypercube has only 8 colors. You can try to solve it here: superliminal.com/cube/cube.htm
I don't know why the don't just mix up a Rubik's Cube and base their design off that.
let's call them parker cubes
WAT THE VIDEO I JUST SAW WAS U BUT NOW ITS ANOTHER 1
These are Parker Rubik’s Cubes.
I had to fix my daughter's friend's cube. It had a twisted corner and a flipped side.
A hypercube has 8 colors.
All of these cubes are possible. You've just caught them while the owner has not yet finished swapping around the stickers.
Found this little gem while waiting at a sales counter in Japan. imgur.com/a/faOud
I’m subscribed to that sub Reddit too!!
what was going on at the ending?
These are real Parker cubes.
I thought squares had five corners
Your compressed moving hands look really strange.
White and yellow faces always have to be on opposite sides.
Devin McLaughlin depends on the country. Some have the colors in different places. He talks about this in the main video.
I like the ending
Um...
Classic parker cubes
What’s your Reddit account?
Couldnt you make it just 2 seconds longer , Parker length
And yellow is opposite of whitr
DumbSchoolKid
Well yellow being opposite of white may be traditional or standard but not *necessary* to make a Rubik’s Cube possible. What Matt is focusing on are depictions of Rubik’s Cubes that would be impossible to exist and solve.
Matt Parker
WTF
look at his shirt...
dont see anything?
yellow + white piece
Really? The corners are the only thing wrong with it?
Is it just my headphones or is the audio in this vid slightly buzzy?
seems OK to me. (just normal laptop speakers rather than anything audiophile, but sounds absolutely normal)
Most of your examples simply are wrong because of the centers, you really don't need to look and corner and edge patterns and placement
Hi I am a Cuber. Who else is?
Just getting back into it this past week after 20 years away (yeah, blah blah, I'm old) thanks in no small part to Matt's videos.
I just gave you a fist bump in my brain.
Is your thumbnail solvable??? Mystery of science...
me
Me and I've also solved the 3^4 cube
(3x3x3x3) u can see my name on the superlumanal hall of fame
okay
Who else found Matt from numberphile??
Kden
It's a Parker cube