[Math] Math Snake Puzzle

puzzle

A colleague recently showed me the following puzzle game and I'm interested in how this can be solved. I thought it would be a good talking point for you guys as well 🙂

enter image description here

A detailed description of the puzzle is here. A sequence of 7 cubes may be rotated about the axis. The puzzle is to rotate them until all 4 equations are correct, such as $2 + 2 / 4 = 1$. Operators are evaluated left to right. The faces of the cube presented in the video (not agreeing with the image) are:

The following pictures show the sides…

Side1
Side2
Side3
Side4

Question

Other than trial and error, is there an easy way to solve this?

Best Answer

The puzzle in the video only has 1 solution.

$$\begin{array} {|c|c|c|c|c|c|} \hline 4 & - & 3 & \times & 3 & = & 3 \\ 2 & + & 2 & \div & 4 & = & 1 \\ 1 & \times & 4 & - & 2 & = & 2 \\ 3 & \div & 1 & + & 1 & = & 4 \\ \hline \end{array}$$

I doubt there is any significantly faster way to solve it than with a computer. It's only $4^6 \div 4 = 1024$ cases to check. I doubt there is a faster way than with a computer, since in general there can a large number of solutions. This is a combinatorial logic problem, so it is NP, and I don't see any obvious way to put it into P.