Rubik cube sequence?

[Brian L. Galebach]

Last time I checked (maybe about a year ago) it was still not known what the
maximum number of moves was to solve the cube from any possible position.
Therefore, the complete sequence would not yet be known.

Brian

-----Original Message-----
From: N. J. A. Sloane [mailto:njas at research.att.com]
Sent: Friday, February 21, 2003 1:50 PM
To: seqfan at ext.jussieu.fr
Subject: Rubik cube sequence?


Inspired by Jaap Scherphuis's excellent web site
on generalizations of Rubik's cube,
i've added several sequences to the OEIS giving the number
of positions that are n moves away from the start in
these puzzles.  For example:

%I A079761
%S A079761 1,9,54,321,1847,9992,50136,227536,870072,1887748,623800,2644
%N A079761 Number of positions that are n moves from the starting position
in the 2 X 2 X 2 Rubik cube puzzle.
%C A079761 A puzzle in the Rubik cube family. The total number of distinct
positions is 3674160. A half-turn is considered to be one move.
%D A079761 D. R. Hofstadter, Metamagical Themas, Basic Books, NY, 1985, p.
359.
%H A079761 Jaap Scherphuis, <a
href="http://www.geocities.com/jaapsch/puzzles/">Puzzle Pages</a>
%K A079761 nonn,fini,full,new
%O A079761 0,2
%A A079761 njas, Feb 20 2003

Does anyone know the analogous sequence for the 3 X 3 X 3 cube,
or even the beginning of that sequence?

NJAS