Rubik's Cube could be coloured in such a way as to emphasise the corners or edges, rather than the faces as the standard colouring does; but neither of these alternative colourings has ever become popular. The original (3×3×3) Rubik's Cube has eight corners and twelve edges. There are 8! (40,320) ways to arrange the corner cubes. Each corner has three possible orientations, although only seven (of eight) can be oriented independently; the orientation of the eighth (final) corner depends on the preceding seven, giving 3 (2,187) possibilities. There are 12!/2 (239,500,800) ways to arrange the edges, restricted from 12! because edges must
Prince Rupert's cube for the largest square that lies within a unit cube. More generally, show how to find the largest rectangle of a given aspect ratio that lies within a unit cube. As they show, the optimal rectangle must always pass through the center of the cube, with its vertices on edges of the cube. Based on this, they show, depending on the desired aspect ratio, that the optimal rectangle must either lie on a plane that cuts diagonally through four corners of the cube, or it must be formed by an isosceles right triangle on one corner of the cube and