Magic Polyhedrons

By Xah Lee. Date: . Last updated: .

My favorite type of physical puzzles are the Rubik-type puzzles called Magic Polyhedrons. These puzzles screams: “group theory” and “combinatorics”!

I bought about 7 varieties from mefferts puzzles in 2001.

Kawai MP9000 piano dodecahedron
megaminx

A magic polyhedron type of puzzle is essentially defined by the cuts and the solid it cuts into. The cuts defines the mathematical essence of the puzzle, while the solid shape gives the puzzle a flavor. Same cuts can be applied to different solids, yet still resulting the same puzzle mathematically. For example, a tic-tac-toe cut applied to a cube results the Rubic's Cube, and appling it to a sphere results a Rubic Ball. The same tic-tac-toe cut can be applied to octahedron or other shapes.

Modern ones are stickerless. This is a improvement, because you don't have to worry about stickers falling out or dealing with the glue leaking on the edge of the stickers.

magic polyhedron 2018-10-01 b77b5
https://aditya-r-m.github.io/twisty-polyhedra/ [source code at [2018-10-01 https://github.com/aditya-r-m/twisty-polyhedra ]]
cube 5x5x5-professors cube
magic cube Magic Cube 4x4x4 magic cube 5x5x5
pyramorphix pyramorphix-scrambled
Pyraminx solved Pyraminx-3 Pyraminx-Tetraminx
magic pyramid
gigaminx mf8
Gigaminx
teraminx mf8 976
Tetraminx. Buy at amazon
pentaminx mf8 lf8zb
Pentaminx. It's a mavel, how this is made. That by itself is a great math puzzle. Buy at amazon
lanlan curvy copter puzzle d270d
LanLan Curvy Copter Puzzle Buy at amazon
mirror cube 0b01h
Mirror Cube

misc

Skewbdiamond skewb-cube skewb-diamond Dogic12 skewb-ultimate

magic cube books

There are lots books on Rubik cube. rubiks cube book

Two old books I've read in early 1990s are

I liked the Singmaster one better.

magic 17 cube  2019-03-05 48bxw
magic 17 cube 2019-03-05

Math Software