2x2x2x2x2

2x2x2x2x2

5D Shape: Hypercube

Physical Shape: “Rectangular prism”

Pieces: 32 5c

Designed: 2023 Feb 13

The Physical 2x2x2x2x2 (2⁵) is a valid design that represents its virtual counterpart, designed by Akkei, Grant, and Andreas. Unlike the restricted 2x2x2x2x2, this puzzle would have the full freedom and moves of the virtual puzzle.

History

In the Hypercubers Discord, Akkei and Andreas were discussing how to represent the symmetries of a 5D 5c piece in 3D. They came upon a certain colouring of the rhombic triacontahedron that worked.

Grant

I see

HHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMM

I seeeee

Akkei quickly finished rendering the full puzzle, with all 32 pieces:

A few hours later, Grant figured out a simpler way to arrange the stickers. The previous approach required each face of each rhombic triacontahedron to take on three colours, but Grant’s approach only required each face of each rhombic triacontahedron to take on one solid colour.

Two days later, after an extensive voice chat, he rendered a different version where the one-colour stickers were rearranged so that typical physical 2x2x2x2 gyros would work on cells of the puzzle, making the puzzle more functional:

This rearrangement works to represent a 5C because the rhombic triacontahedron encodes the same information as a compound of five cubes, where each cube represents a sticker of the five-dimensional puzzle.

The only remaining problem to make the puzzle fully useable is a reasonable 5d gyro to swap out the primary axis of the puzzle.