Algebraic Structure of the Varikon Box

Jason d'Eon; Chrystopher L. Nehaniv

Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2006.01296

Algebraic Structure of the Varikon Box

Jason d'Eon·Chrystopher L. Nehaniv

View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

The 15-Puzzle is a well studied permutation puzzle. This paper explores the group structure of a three-dimensional variant of the 15-Puzzle known as the Varikon Box, with the goal of providing a heuristic that would help a human solve it while minimizing the number of moves. First, we show by a parity argument which configurations of the puzzle are reachable. We define a generating set based on the three dimensions of movement, which generates a group that acts on the puzzle configurations, and we explore the structure of this group. Finally, we show a heuristic for solving the puzzle by writing an element of the symmetry group as a word in terms of a generating set, and we compute the shortest possible word for each puzzle configuration.

Explore related subjects

math.GR math.CO math.DS

Keep this discovery

BibTeX RIS

Jason d'Eon, Chrystopher L. Nehaniv. 2020-06-01. Algebraic Structure of the Varikon Box. https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.01296

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Reversibility and its asymptotic counting in Picard group

We investigate reversible elements in the Picard modular group $\mathrm{PSL}(2,\mathbb{Z}[i])$. We show that reversibility coincides with strong reversibility for Kleinian groups, in particular for the Picard group. We classify reversible elements in the Picard group and characterize loxodromic reversible elements up to conjugacy. We prove that each such conjugacy class contains exactly eight special representatives. We also obtain asymptotic estimates for the number of reversible conjugacy classes with bounded trace.

math.GR↗

arXiv2026

Conjugator length in finitely generated groups

We describe all functions $\mathbb{N}\rightarrow \mathbb{N}$ that can be realized, up to the standard equivalence, as conjugator length functions of finitely generated groups. Furthermore, we show that any two increasing functions $f,g\colon \mathbb N\to \mathbb N$ can be simultaneously realized as conjugator length functions of finitely generated, commensurable (in particular, quasi-isometric) groups.

math.GR↗

arXiv2026

The spectrum of conjugator length functions

A recent program tries to find which functions appear as conjugator length functions. In this note, we show that any (computable) increasing function larger than $n$ appears as $\mathrm{Cl}_G$ for some finitely generated (recursively presented) group. On the other hand, we demonstrate that either $\mathrm{Cl}_G$ must be constant or $\mathrm{Cl}_G(n)\succ n$. Combining these, we obtain a complete description of which functions appear as conjugator length functions of finitely generated groups.

math.GR↗