Talk:Soma cube

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Hint: fitting the most "awkward" pieces first in a backtracking search for the Soma puzzle makes it go much faster, by both increasing the probability of early cutoff, and making branches that are not cut-off early much more likely to contain solutions. Compare the search strategy used by the winners of the Eternity puzzle contest. -- The Anome 10:49, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

So, what does the soma cube have to do with quantum mechanics?

[edit] History

When was the puzzle invented, and was it actually during a Heisenberg lecture? This page tries to answer those questions, but apparently it's not entirely clear. If anyone can find more conclusive references, it's probably worth adding to the article. --Piet Delport 18:44, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Small Soma Cube

Is this the world's smallest soma cube?

[edit] aldous huxley or just greek?

The article says

The soma cube is often regarded as the 3D equivalent of polyominos. There are interesting parity properties relating to solutions of the Soma puzzle. It is unclear whether the puzzle is named after the fictitious drug soma in Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World.

Well, if there is no reason to think it is related, nor any evidence, why shouldn't it just be named for the Greek word for "body"? It is, after all, a puzzle involving a 3 dimensional body. -lethe ^{talk +} 14:16, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The book was published in 1932, the puzzle invented in 1936. It is not completely unreasonable to imagine that there might be a connection. I haven't been able to find any concrete evidence one way or another. There are some (non-authoritative) web pages that do mention the Brave New World connection, but none that I could find mention anything about the Greek term. That said, why did you delete that whole paragraph instead of just the one sentence? --LarryMac 15:04, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, that was an accident. Well anyway, if someone wants to bring back the sentence, let them find a reference. If Hein never stated it, then it's simply speculation on the part of some fan, and I don't think it belongs in the article. -lethe ^{talk +} 15:08, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I agree that it's unsourced and shouldn't be there presently. I wonder where my old Soma cubes are . . . --LarryMac 15:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)