Talk:Soma cube

For much more about the SOMA CUBE, try to visit Thorleif's web page at https://www.fam-bundgaard.dk/SOMA/SOMA.HTM -- Thorleif Bundgaard 2023-01-23. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.23.123.80 (talk) 21:03, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

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?

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)

Small Soma Cube

Is this the world's smallest soma cube? File:Soma2.jpg File:Soma3.jpg

Plastic mono-color soma cubes were popular in the U.S. during the 1970s and I had lots of fun with mine. -- WillWare (talk) 02:11, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

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)

If you go to soma you'll see where the word comes from. Dr. Morbius 00:06, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

magnificent cube

when i was a kid ()i'm 44 now 2011() my mother had a wooden cube puzzle thingy called the magnificent cube so i dont think the inventor of the soma cube had the idea first the shapes were the same the whole thing was the same —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.182.90.20 (talk) 13:36, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Where did these piece names come from?

According to the history of this page, the names for the pieces were introduced near the beginning, back in 2002. Does anyone know where those names came from? I ask because I did my senior thesis on the Soma cube, and the names here are very different from what my thesis advisor used, in which each piece had a single letter designation. What here is called the "L" tricube we called the "V". What here is called the "S" we called the "Z". What here is called the left screw, we called the "R". What here is called the right screw, we called the "S". What here is called the branch, we called the "Y". The only two in common are the "L" and the "T". Is there any reason to believe that the names currently used here are official in some way?

Also, we had a simpler rule for arriving at the seven pieces: they are all the combinations of three or four cubes, joined at their faces, and where at least one inside corner is formed. What's here, talking about "excluding convex shapes" seems confusing and not even strictly correct. Three cubes joined in a line is "convex" in what sense of that word? It certainly doesn't fit Wiki's definition of convex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convex

Also, an interesting fact about the Soma cube that isn't mentioned here: In all solutions, there is only one place that the "T" piece will fit. In other words, all of the 240 solutions can be oriented such that the "T" will have its long side on the bottom edge of the cube with the "tongue" of the "T" in the bottom center cubelet. I don't have a cite for that, but I do have a pretty simple proof that I think anyone can understand.

Proper Stranger (talk) 22:42, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Capital or lower case?

Within this article there are many occurrences of "Soma" with a capital initial "S" when it's not at the beginning of a sentnece, and many others where it's in lower case. Which should it be, and why? Michael Hardy (talk) 18:06, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

SOMA manual

A figure and the text refers to "the SOMA manual"/"the Soma manual". What is that? Is it one of the references we have already? Is there a valid reason for writing "SOMA" rather than "Soma" - is it the actual title of a source? Nø (talk) 07:53, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Plane partitions

Exhaustively, how many Plane partitions do the pieces have? ~~~ kencf0618 (talk) 22:04, 26 September 2023 (UTC)