Cubic Circular 07/08/2007 03:35 PM

Cubic Circular

The Cubic Circular magazine was written and produced by David Singmaster in the early Eighties. The first issue was a small 16 page pink booklet, of about 19.5 × 14cm. Later issues were on yellow paper and slightly larger at 21 × 14.5cm (A5 format). There were only 5 magazines published, of which 3 were double issues:

Issue 1: 16 pages Autumn 1981 Issue 2: 16 pages Spring 1982 Issue 3 & 4: 36 pages Spring & Summer 1982 Issue 5 & 6: 28 pages Autumn & Winter 1982 Issue 7 & 8: 48 pages Summer 1985

David Singmaster still has copies of the Cubic Circular available, so I highly recommend acquiring them from him directly, as they are collectible items. David can be contacted via e-mail (zingmast at sbu.ac.uk) or at:

David Singmaster 87 Rodenhurst Road , SW4 8AF

David Singmaster has very kindly allowed me to reproduce the magazines on this site. I have tried to keep it as close to the original as possible, so I have kept the images in the same style (even though most pictures have been redrawn) and kept the same page numbering. A sheet with corrections was included with the first issue, pertaining mostly to the article about Ernö Rubik, so I have inserted it at that point. I have occasionally inserted a comment or correction of my own, and to be clearly distinguishable from David's original text my comments are in italics and in square brackets, [like this - J ].

Below are the Tables of Contents. All page numbers are links, as well as the buttons.

Index Issue 1 Issue 2 Issue 3/4 Issue 5/6 Issue 7/8

Issue 1 Autumn 1981 2 Welcome, Advertisement and Introduction 3 Ernö Rubik and his Cube 5 Cube Variations 5 Sticker Variations 6 23 7 43, Truncated cubes 8 Ball and Globe 9 Octagon Prism, Pillow Cube

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10 - The 12 Clubs 12 Shortest Times and Competitions 14 Funny Moves 14 Errata to my Notes 15 General Anecdotes 16 Marital Anecdotes

Issue 2 Spring 1982 2 Introduction 2 News 3 New Books 3 Newsletters 3 Competitions, Times, etc. 4 Lead Hazards ? 6 Other Medical Anecdotes 8 Technical Notes 8 34, counting arguments, 43 9 Sliding Piece 9 4×4, Crossover 9 Sliding Cube Puzzles 10 Cylindrical Puzzles 11 Remarks on Difficulty 13 Trillion, Interlocking Cycle Puzzles 14 Hungarian Rings, Disc Chess, Rotascope 15 Equator 16 Switchable Cycle Puzzles, Orbit, Diogenes, Vip Sphere

Issue 3 & 4 Spring & Summer 1982 2 Editor's Corner 2 Songs 2 Answer 3 Cubic Quarterlies 4 The First World Championship 7 Other Competitions, Cubic Cannabis 8 New Cube Products 12 Siamese Cube, 13 A. Pryl - Fool! 14 Rubik's Revenge - The 43 17 Winning Ways on the U Group 18 The 53 19 The Magic and Alexander's Star 21 Magic Polyhedra 25 Rubik Robots 26 Pretty Patterns 34 Orders of Elements 36 The Magic Disc 36 Comments on the U Group

Issue 5 & 6 Autumn & Winter 1982 2 Editor's Corner 2 More on the U Group 2 Cubathons 3 The n-Dimensional Cube Solved

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4 Miscellany 5 New Cube Products 7 Tsukuda's Square 8 More Clubs 9 Generalized Hungarian Rings 10 The Incredi-Ball (or Impossiball) 10 Going Ape over the Cube 11 Some Geometric Puzzles 11 A. Eight Cube Rings 13 B. Twelve Tetrahedra Rings 14 C. Cubic Snakes 15 Some Notes on the 43 18 Pyraminx 19 Pyraminx Patterns 22 Cubism and Religion 23 Prehistory of the Cube 24 Local Maxima 25 The Trials of the Cube 25 A Czech Check Problem 26 God's Algorithms 28 First Day Cover 28 Block of 4 Stamps

Issue 7 & 8 Summer 1985 2 Editor's Corner, Oxford Series in 3 Sources in Recreational Mathematics. Centre for Mathematical Recreations and Puzzles. Puzzling Announcements. 4 New Cube Products. 6 Rainbow Patterns. 7 Shepherd's Bloody Cube. 8 More on the U Group. More on Local Maxima. Some Pretty Random Patterns. 9 Some Comments about the 43. A 34 Simulator. 10 The Theory of the n3. 12 The 53. 13 Rubik's Mate - The Siamese Cubes. 14 Geometry of the 63 and 73. 15 The Skewb or Pyraminx Cube. 18 God's Algorithm for the Pyraminx, 19 Uriblock. More on the Hungarian Rings. 20 Some Notes on Polyhedra. 24 Regular Polyhedra, 25 Kepler-Poinsot Polyhedra. 26 Honeycombs. 27 Semi-regular Polyhedra. 28 Archimedean Polyhedra. 30 Archimedean Tessellations. 31 Uniform Polyhedra. Regular-faced Polyhedra. 32 Tessellations and Tilings. 34 Addendum. 35 Sliding Cube Puzzles. 36 A Rubric on Rubik Cubics. By Claude Shannon. 39 The XL-25. 43 Curious Cubic Correspondence. 45 A 43 Competition. 1000DM in Prizes. A Cubic Sick Joke. 46 Rubik's Foundation. Youngest Cubist? Cubic Mail Box. Rubik Cubik Magik. A Novel http://www.geocities.com/jaapsch/puzzles/cubic.htm Page 3 of 4 Cubic Circular 07/08/2007 03:35 PM

Appearance. 47 The History and Further Trials of the Cube. A Rumour. 48 Some Pyraminx Variations. A Mad Comment.

Index Issue 1 Issue 2 Issue 3/4 Issue 5/6 Issue 7/8

The text and original drawings are copyright © David Singmaster, reproduced here with permission. Conversion to html and additional commentary by Jaap Scherphuis.

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