The Neo-Cube Puzzle (Neobdymium Magnets)

[Dean]

After a somewhat prolonged discussion with two people (via PM) in the LoR chat-room, I decided to post this, finally. Hope all of you enjoy this. Several hours ago, I encountered this puzzle (initially from YouTube, as you will see). It is a magnetic puzzle composed of several hundred extremely powerful rare-Earth neobdymium magnets, each with a spherical shape, and the material has a highly distinctive tetragonal crystalline structure, and exceptionally high magnetic-coercivity. What appeals to my aesthetic sensibilities in this puzzle is not so much it's chemical properties, but the realisation of the nearly infinite (though nevertheless finite) combinatorial permutations of the puzzle, and it's malleability with which one can form almost any structure conceivable from them. All in all, it looks like an awful lot of fun!

• The NeoCube
  

If anyone is dying to have one,thankfully, NeoCube is available for purchase at this website: http://www.theneocube.com/ . There's even a large package (Omega) with a total of 1,027 spheres in total, for $105.95, or ,£68.46! I can confirm that I have ordered the "Cube Tastic" version, with 251 spheres, and a regular co-conversant of mine in the chat, C. Ebbesen; has ordered the original version (upon me showing it to him).

Enjoy!

 

[CEbbesen]

Fucking magnets, how do they work?

 

[bluejatheist]

The related videos look like there're are some complicated things you can build out of them

 

[Dean]

The related videos look like there're are some complicated things you can build out of them

Indeed. Still though, there may be a very wide number of permutations, but only a finite set of them. I am surprised he (the person in the above video) did not make a Mà¶bius strip. In fact, with the Omega version of the NeoCube , complete with 1,027 magnets , he could have enterprisingly advanced from a Mà¶bius strip, to create a projected cone or even a Klein bottle.

 

[bluejatheist]

Are true klein bottles even possible in 3 dimensions though?

 

[Dean]

Are true klein bottles even possible in 3 dimensions though?

No, not in any literal sense. A true Klein bottle is, in effect, a 2-dimensional manifold that is only logically apprehensible in 4 dimensions of space. Alas, our universe has only 3 linear spatial dimensions, so true Klein bottles cannot exist in this universe, Q. E. D. Nevertheless, 3-dimensional immersions of the Klein bottle are physically possible, as you can see here. In this case, they are made of glass. Think of it like this, the image you come to when you click on that link is a 2-dimensional photographic representation,of an object that truly exists in 3 dimensions, e.g. in this case a glass 3-dimensionally embedded (pseudo)-Klein-bottle, and that object per se is itself a 3-dimensional image, or (again),representation of a 4-dimensional object, and such objects do not (and cannot) exist in our universe, for the aforementioned reasons.

The presence of a true Klein-bottle would make this universe a far more illustrious place. O' well.

 

[bluejatheist]

No, not in any literal sense. A true Klein bottle is, in effect, a 2-dimensional manifold that is only logically apprehensible in 4 dimensions of space. Alas, our universe has only 3 linear spatial dimensions, so true Klein bottles cannot exist in this universe, Q. E. D. Nevertheless, 3-dimensional immersions of the Klein bottle are physically possible, as you can see here. In this case, they are made of glass. Think of it like this, the image you come to when you click on that link is a 2-dimensional photographic representation,of an object that truly exists in 3 dimensions, e.g. in this case a glass 3-dimensionally embedded (pseudo)-Klein-bottle, and that object per se is itself a 3-dimensional image, or (again),representation of a 4-dimensional object, and such objects do not (and cannot) exist in our universe, for the aforementioned reasons.

The presence of a true Klein-bottle would make this universe a far more illustrious place. O' well.

Yeah I looked up klein bottles beforehand and noticed how they didn't seem to make since in 3 dimensions because there was no actual looping but then saw it was meant for 4 dimensions.

 

[Zephemus]

That's pretty nifty.

 

[The Felonius Pope]

Holy shit, magnets!!!

 

[Frenger]

Fucking magnets, how do they work?

Please tell me that was a quote from this!

 

[CEbbesen]

Fucking magnets, how do they work?

Please tell me that was a quote from this!

I'm 12 and what is this?

 

[scalyblue]

Fucking magnets, how do they work?

Please tell me that was a quote from this!

 

[Dean]

Don't worry, I am not talking to myself. Having recently navigated adolescence successfully, I have a considerable number of decades yet before my mind descends into cognitive dementia. In the meantime, there is a point I felt I could expand on somewhat:

["¦] the realisation of the nearly infinite (though nevertheless finite) combinatorial permutations of the puzzle ["¦]

I find the richly strategic board-game of Go ("圍棋", or "Wéiqà­" in the language of the nation it originated from, i.e. China) fascinating for similar reasons to those enumerated here , namely, the nearly infinite series of possible novel permutations of territory-stalking and stone-capturing moves on the board throughout the course of the game. All intersections on the grid constitute the individual points of territory, and likewise, each stone is a "soldier"; amidst an army of many soldiers attempting to capture that said territory. As with the NeoCube spheres, and arguably Rubik's cubes , be it the tradition 3D Rubik's cube, or 4D tesseract, both of which I have enjoyed immensely , Go-game components are minimalist, elemental, and emergent.

Creating such a game in computer with artificial intelligence is now regarded as a field almost in itself with in computer science, though more pertinently to those areas which focus on the study of A. I.

 

[GeologyJack]

I had some of those magnets (how do they work???) for a while, they were quite fun to mess around with and I got quite good at building strange little things with them to pass the time. You have to be careful to make sure they don't run into each other with high velocity as they start to fall apart slightly and cleaning them becomes difficult then they become less fun to mess with.

When you can successfully build a cube out of 216 of them with your eyes closed, it is way fun.

As for the simplicity, I do adore me some simplicity, especially with go.