Can you solve the alien probe riddle? - Dan Finkel

Your team has developed a probe to study an alien monolith. It needs protective coatings — in red, purple or green — to cope with the environments it passes through. Can you figure out how to apply the colors so the probe survives the trip? Dan Finkel shows how.

Lesson by Dan Finkel, directed by Anton Trofimov.

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[notme]

I like how in each video, I'm someone different. A spy, a scientist, a deep space explorer, a cop etc. I can fulfill my long held dreams.
It's also great that this channel assumes I'm capable of making a probe like that. Cant even boil milk without burning it.

[zsauce]

Oh man, I love the little easter egg at the beginning of the video: the name of the planet, RH-1729 is named after the Hardy-Ramanujan Number, which just so happens to be 1729.

[Lunkster]

I dont have to solve it Bc apparently i have a team of engineers.

[anjikad]

I literally don't even know what he's talking about, I just like the animation. ;)

[SciencewithKatie]

I like how I always pause it as if I can even figure out the riddle 🙈

[stat-eater]

Step 1: paint the cube green
Step 2: call the cube “eyes”
Step 3: inform the extreme cold and extreme heat that you have green eyes

[cosmicbrambleclawv]

"How do you paint the cubes?"

Me being simple: Start with the red, like it shows, then rearrange it to be all white, paint it green, do that again and paint it purple

[njstuckey]

I solved this riddle, but the solution as worded is pretty difficult to replicate unless you have a 3d modeling program handy. "Start by painting the outside red" makes it a trial and error process with the task of mentally modeling all 27 cubes at the same ttime. Some can do that I guess but it is a needlessly complicated method. This riddle is more reliably solved by making it a math/logic problem, which the video does do but it's hidden by the use of modeling and not easy to follow.

The first crucial step is identifying that there are no wasted spaces. The second is realizing that only one cube at a time can lack a particular color (i.e 26 cubes have to have green SOMEWHERE and the same for the other two colors). The third is realizing that the solution will have to use symmetry.

Put those together and you can realize that three cubes will be two-toned corner cubes (3R-3G, 3R-3P, and 3G-3P). This provides 2 corner cubes for each color (plus the middle hidden one) Then since each color requires 6 more corner cubes, you can deduce that 18 cubes will be painted half red/green/purple (3R-?, 3G-?, and 3P-?). At this point we have accounted for all the corners and th hidden middle.

Remember now from the original points, all these 18 cubes must have a pattern using all three colors The only way for each if them to have all three colors, when half the cube is already used up, is to make two sides some other color and one last side from the final color. If we do this symmetrically, that means the six cubes of 3G will be divided into three cubes of 2R-1P and three cubes of 2P-1R. And the same for the 3R cubes and the 3P cubes, with the corresponding colors. This gives us (for each color) six corner cubes, six edge cubes, and six one-sided cubes. So we take this step, we find that we have accounted for the corner, hidden, and one-sided cubes for all three colors.

But we still have the edge cubes. Thankfully this part is easier because we don't have that many left to work with. We have used up 21 cubes (three two-tones and 18 multi-tones) so we only have six cubes. And since we need six more edge cubes of each color, we simply paint each cube with two adjacent same-color panels. This gives us six edge cubes for each color and finishes the problem.

That was a lot longer than I realized while typing it out, so maybe not "simpler" than the given solution lol. But it is easier to do it this way IMO if you don't have a 3D modeling program to keep track of the cubes visually.

[themax]

Ted-Ed: the probe should be completely green in the electric storms
Also Ted-Ed: a module flies out to send signal

[lucidluminary]

A riddle about an alien probe. Does that make it an alien probe-lem?

[CalliopePony]

It took me a little while, but once I figured out the pattern I solved it!
Here's the fun thing though: While I was solving this I realized that you can also paint a 2x2x2 cube to display two colors, just as here you can paint a 3x3x3 cube to display three colors. This got me curious, and with a little more thought I figured out how to paint a 4x4x4 cube to display four colors.
So now I'm really curious if it is infinite. Like, could you paint a 10x10x10 cube to display ten colors? 100x100x100 to display one hundred colors?

[landsgevaer]

The 27 cubes can be made by cutting a big cube six times: twice in the xy plane, twice in xz, and twice in yz. If you paint the outsides red and the inner faces along two cuts in each direction one blue and one green, that works. Colors can be changed by changing whole layers of nine cubes around cyclically along all three axes.

[matrixphijr]

“Bonus riddle: How many _more_ ways can you solve the riddle?”

Objection! Question assumes facts not in evidence.

[blankname]

I have an idea for riddle.
Space station called the Sephyris.ypur the commander of the ship. Suddenly the plants that make the oxygen in the shop are infected with a parasite fungus that one scientist accidentally released.As you scramble to get the backup seeds, a solar flare hits the space ship, and all the seeds in the containers fly out and get mixed up.One plant seed produces oxygen at the cost of carbon dioxide, the second absorbs oxygen and releases deadly toxins, and the third absorbs carbon dioxide but gives off deadly hydrogen.you obviously need the first plant.But there is a way to tell them apart.Each plant has only 3 leaves
The first plant can come in a variety of green, yellow and brown leaf colors, and their leaves can be mixed color.For example, one leaf can be green while the other two can be brown, or each leaf is an individual color and etc.The second plant can come in variety of green, brown and orange leaf color.The third can be brown, yellow and red leaf color.Not all leaves have to have all colors on their leaves.So the second plant can have 2 green and one brown.But, you have a machine.You can test up to 4 plants at a time to tell which is toxic.But you can only use it 5 times before the oxygen becomes critical.There are a total of 40 plants in all.And as long as you get the same amount of non toxic plants to toxic, or more non toxic plants than toxic, you will win.So what's the best strategy to ensure your survival?Please use my idea :) took me a long time to think and write

[azizuladnan]

No. But I can solve 3 by 3 Rubiks Cube.
Which has nothing to do with the video. XD

[jackaagje]

me: oh this is easy i can do this.
also me: you have to think
my brain: i found the best solution already, press the spacebar

[unleashingpotential-psycho]

Anyone who can solve the alien probe riddle should work for NASA.

[chocolatemoose]

The art of this video was so crisp and perfect. Mad props.

[Vndalite]

There's a *really easy* way to solve the riddle in this video.

Take the cube, remove the top layer, and without changing any orientation, put it on the bottom. The red faces from the top should end up touching the red faces from the original bottom.
Then do the same left to right
And again front to back.
You should end up with all the red-painted colors facing each other along three internal planes in the cube.
Paint the outside purple now... then do it all again. Now all the red and purple faces should be in the two internal sections, leaving all the final white faces on the outside.
Paint the final color.

Fun fact, you should be able to extend this, painting four colors onto an assembly of 64 cubes.

[sayoriiiiiiiiiiiiii]

Step 1: Confirm you have green eyes.
Step 2: Ask the dangers to leave.
Step 3: Cover it all in red.