# 4x4x4, big or small?



## Kenneth (Nov 7, 2008)

I made a short page about big cubes in the wiki. While doing this I remebered something that I planned to write earlier but then forgot...

Since the V-cubes came I started to feel the 4x4x4 cube is the largest of the small cubes and the 5x5x5 is the smallest of the big ones. It feels like the gap between 5x5 and 6x6 is smaller than the gap between 4x4 and 5x5.

Before we had; small = 2x2, 3x3 and big = 4x4, 5x5

But now I like it to be; small = 2x2, 3x3, 4x4 and big = 5x5, 6x6, 7x7

Agree?

_Maybe this should be in the harware area?, sometimes it's hard to decide what's best_


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## fcwy1 (Nov 7, 2008)

i think small should be 2x2 and 3x3. anything bigger should be big


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## not_kevin (Nov 7, 2008)

It seems like they've decided that 2,3 are small (no wides in scrambles), 4,5 are "medium" (wides necessary), and 6+ is big (more than simple wides necessary). 'Tho this is just what I understand.


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## Kenneth (Nov 7, 2008)

not_kevin said:


> It seems like they've decided that 2,3 are small (no wides in scrambles), 4,5 are "medium" (wides necessary), and 6+ is big (more than simple wides necessary). 'Tho this is just what I understand.



I did not think of "middle size" but that sounds resonalbe to me.


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## cmhardw (Nov 7, 2008)

not_kevin said:


> It seems like they've decided that 2,3 are small (no wides in scrambles), 4,5 are "medium" (wides necessary), and 6+ is big (more than simple wides necessary). 'Tho this is just what I understand.



I also like this convention, and have been trying to use it whenever I talk about cubes. To me 2x2 and 3x3 are small, 4x4 and 5x5 (the old big cubes) are now "medium" cubes, and 6x6 and 7x7 are "big" cubes.

Think of it as a track distance. 2x2 and 3x3 are like short races, 4x4 and 5x5 are middle distance races. Currently, until even larger V-cubes come out, the 6x6 and 7x7 are the marathon events (for speed or for BLD).

Chris


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## Dene (Nov 7, 2008)

I use:

2x2x2 = small
3x3x3 = normal
4x4x4 & 5x5x5 = big
6x6x6 & 7x7x7 = giant

I prefer to leave the old names as they were. The next size of cubes will (for me) be:

8x8x8 & 9x9x9: enormous.


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## qqwref (Nov 7, 2008)

The way I think about it is similar to Dene:
2x2x2 - mini cube (no edges or centers at all)
3x3x3 - just "cube" 
4x4x4, 5x5x5 - bigcubes (you have multiple edges and lots of centers to pair up now)
6x6x6, 7x7x7 - bigbigcubes/hugecubes/megacubes/whatever (can't solve last two centers just by blockbuilding; took much longer to be made in real life)
8x8+ - computer cubes


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## Waynilein (Nov 7, 2008)

I'd categorise them according to difficulty.
If you can solve a 4x4x4, you can also solve the 5x5x5 with exactly the same method. But 6x6x6 and anything bigger is a different thing (the last two centers require a different method from 5x5x5).
So my categories are:
2x2x2 = mini
3x3x3 = normal
4x4x4 and 5x5x5 = big
6x6x6 and anything bigger = huge


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## TimMc (Nov 7, 2008)

3x3x3 = just 3x3x3
2x2x2 = just 2x2x2
n > 3 = big cubes category

Tim.


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## TMOY (Nov 7, 2008)

Waynilein said:


> I'd categorise them according to difficulty.
> If you can solve a 4x4x4, you can also solve the 5x5x5 with exactly the same method. But 6x6x6 and anything bigger is a different thing (the last two centers require a different method from 5x5x5).


I don't agree. There are more differences between my methods for 4^3 and 5^3 than between 5^3 and bigger cubes.


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## rachmaninovian (Nov 7, 2008)

TMOY said:


> Waynilein said:
> 
> 
> > I'd categorise them according to difficulty.
> ...


heh, for odd cubes I just solve the 3x3 part before solving them as 4x4s


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## Mike Hughey (Nov 7, 2008)

At first I classified them like Chris. But for me, BLD is most important, and as the cubing community has gotten better, it's definitely true that 4x4x4 BLD has come to feel very much like 3x3x3 BLD - very rushed and scary. Whereas 5x5x5 BLD feels more like 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 - nice and relaxed.

So I now classify them like Kenneth said in the first post. For BLD, 4x4x4 is definitely a little cube, not much different from 3x3x3. 5x5x5 feels more like big, although I might be okay with thinking of it as medium.

Like I said a few weeks ago, if you can stackmat it BLD, it's little.  (Which of course means that Rafal should call 5x5x5 a little cube. )


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## KConny (Nov 8, 2008)

Gah, so I guess I no longer can do big cubes BLD.


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## ErikJ (Nov 8, 2008)

anything can you use reduction to solve is a big cube


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## Swordsman Kirby (Nov 8, 2008)

Waynilein said:


> But 6x6x6 and anything bigger is a different thing (the last two centers require a different method from 5x5x5).



Hahahahahahahahahhhhahhahaahah.


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## TMOY (Nov 9, 2008)

ErikJ said:


> anything can you use reduction to solve is a big cube


Then there is no such thing as a big cube for me


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## MistArts (Nov 9, 2008)

ErikJ said:


> anything *can you use* reduction to solve is a big cube



You can use reduction on every cube.


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## EmersonHerrmann (Nov 9, 2008)

not_kevin said:


> It seems like they've decided that 2,3 are small (no wides in scrambles), 4,5 are "medium" (wides necessary), and 6+ is big (more than simple wides necessary). 'Tho this is just what I understand.



I'm really gonna have to agree with you, great suggestion :O


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## Escher (Nov 9, 2008)

so then there has never been a wca sanctioned big cube event?


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## TMOY (Nov 9, 2008)

MistArts said:


> You can use reduction on every cube.


Yes, every cube can be reduced to a 1^3 cube. That's what we usually call solving it.


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## qqwref (Nov 10, 2008)

Perhaps the answer is what is known as "multi-reduction". The way this works is that we 'reduce' the cube to a smaller NxNxN cube as many times as possible, and the maximum number of times we can do this determines how big this is.

A 2x2 or 3x3 can only be reduced once, to a 1x1x1. So they're small.
A 4x4 or 5x5 can be reduced twice (4-2-1 or 4-3-1, 5-3-1). So they're medium.
A 6x6 or 7x7 can be reduced three times (6-5-3-1 or 6-4-3-1 or 6-4-2-1, 7-5-3-1). So they're large.
Perhaps we can call 8x8 or 9x9 an XL cube, and 10x10 or 11x11 an XXL cube, and so on... then 20x20 becomes 7XL 

By the way, give multi-reduction a try on 7x7 or whatever. It's fun.


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