The Bedlam cube is a
solid dissection puzzle invented by British puzzle expert Bruce Bedlam.
Design
The puzzle consists of thirteen
polycubic pieces: twelve
pentacube
image:tetracube_categories.svg, upAll 8 one-sided tetracubes – if chirality is ignored, the bottom 2 in grey are considered the same, giving 7 free tetracubes in total
image:9L cube puzzle solution.svg, A puzzle involving arranging nine L tricube ...
s and one
tetracube. The objective is to assemble these pieces into a 4 x 4 x 4 cube. There are 19,186 distinct ways of doing so,
up to Two Mathematical object, mathematical objects and are called "equal up to an equivalence relation "
* if and are related by , that is,
* if holds, that is,
* if the equivalence classes of and with respect to are equal.
This figure of speech ...
rotations and reflections.
The Bedlam cube is one unit per side larger than the 3 x 3 x 3
Soma cube
The Soma cube is a mechanical puzzle#Assembly, solid dissection puzzle invented by Danish polymath Piet Hein (scientist), Piet Hein in 1933 during a lecture on quantum mechanics conducted by Werner Heisenberg.
Seven different Polycube, pieces ...
, and is much more difficult to solve.
History
Two of the BBC's 'Dragons' from ''
Dragons' Den'',
Rachel Elnaugh
Rachel Elnaugh (born 1964) is a former British entrepreneur who founded the UK gift company Red Letter Days. She was one of the investors participating in the first two series of BBC Two's reality TV show '' Dragons' Den''.
Early life
Elnaug ...
and
Theo Paphitis, were to invest in the Bedlam cube during the 2005 series. They offered £100,000 for a 30% share of equity in Bedlam Puzzles. Danny Bamping (the entrepreneur behind Bedlam cube) finally chose a bank loan instead of their investment, as seen in the relevant "Where Are They Now" episode of ''Dragons' Den''.
Records
According to ''
Guinness World Records
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, list ...
'', the uncontested world record for assembling the Bedlam Cube is 11.03 seconds by Danny Bamping on 9 November 2006. The blindfolded record is 27.21 seconds by Aleksandr Iljasov on 25 February 2008.
See also
*
Slothouber–Graatsma puzzle
*
Conway puzzle
*
Polycube
image:tetracube_categories.svg, upAll 8 one-sided tetracubes – if chirality is ignored, the bottom 2 in grey are considered the same, giving 7 free tetracubes in total
image:9L cube puzzle solution.svg, A puzzle involving arranging nine L tricube ...
*
Soma cube
The Soma cube is a mechanical puzzle#Assembly, solid dissection puzzle invented by Danish polymath Piet Hein (scientist), Piet Hein in 1933 during a lecture on quantum mechanics conducted by Werner Heisenberg.
Seven different Polycube, pieces ...
References
External links
* (as was, 2011: last valid archive copy)
Bedlam Cube solverAll 19,186 Bedlam Cube SolutionsBedlam Cube Demonstration Software
Mechanical puzzle cubes
Tiling puzzles
{{Mathapplied-stub