Impossible cube ambiguity present in a Necker cube illustration, in which a cube is drawn with its edges as line segments, and can be interpreted as being in either of two different three-dimensional orientations. An impossible cube is usually rendered as a Necker cube in which the line segments representing the edges have been replaced by what are apparently solid beams. In Escher's print, the top four joints of the cube, and the upper of the two crossings between its beams, match one of the two interpretations of the Necker cube, while the bottom four joints and the bottom crossing match the
Cube root approximation is somewhat of a black art. Some implementations manipulate the exponent bits of the floating-point number; i.e. they arrive at an initial approximation by dividing the exponent by 3. Cubic equations, which are polynomial equations of the third degree (meaning the highest power of the unknown is 3) can always be solved for their three solutions in terms of cube roots and square roots (although simpler expressions only in terms of square roots exist for all three solutions, if at least one of them is a rational number). If two of the solutions are complex numbers, then all three