Nautilus

Nautilus is a colourful puzzle in the shape of a Nautilus shell. It is mechanically similar to the Square-1, as it has three layers, where the middle layer is split through the middle into two halves. When solved, the top and bottom layers each consist of seven pieces arranged like slices around the centre point. The seven pieces in a layer have different angular sizes, namely 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, and 90 degrees, and are coloured like a rainbow from violet to red. The outer layers can rotate about their centre point. If both layers are rotated such that the seam through the middle layer lines up with seams between the pieces, then you can turn over half the puzzle, mixing the pieces from the two outer layers together.
The puzzle was designed by Tim Selkirk, and produced by Uwe Meffert.

The number of positions:

As this puzzle is so heavily bandaged, it is not possible to calculate the number of positions, and you have to simply enumerate them all by trying all possible move sequences (i.e. find God's algorithm). It turns out that the movements are so restricted that it is impossible to swap two pieces of the same size, and even that the arrangement of pieces in one outer layer determines the order of the pieces in the other.
I consider one half of the middle layer as fixed in space. The other half of the middle layer has two possible positions. If positions that differ by turns of the top or bottom layers are considered the same, then there are 326 possible arrangements of the outer layers, giving 652 positions. If we count twistable arrangements, those in which it is possible to twist the middle layer, then there are 2016 arrangements of the pieces, or 4032 positions all together. Note that this shows that on average a layer has sqrt(2016/326) = 2.48 orientations in which it lines up with the seam, i.e. there are on average 1.24 cuts per layer.

I have used a computer to calculate God's algorithm for the puzzle. The results in the table below show that the pieces can be solved in at most 12 twists (4.9939 on average), or 13 if you want to solve the middle layer as well (5.4969 on average). If you count all outer layer turns as moves too, then it takes 27 moves (12.608 on average), or 28 with the middle layer (13.298 on average).

Excluding the middle layer

Turn metric:

Turn metric
Twistable positions:

Twist metric:

0	1
1	71
2	1301
3	1654
4	8001
5	12543
6	25673
7	37216
8	18908
9	41696
10	37232
11	31104
12	39220
13	7700

Total	422496 = 3263636
14	28240
15	34584
16	14984
17	5736
18	9808
19	5192
20	9800
21	560
22	5192
23	5760
24	19600
25	1120
26	10352
27	9248

0	1
1	7
2	17
3	42
4	97
5	147
6	193
7	188
8	180
9	144
10	128
11	144
12	100
13	116

Total	2016
14	104
15	56
16	32
17	32
18	24
19	32
20	16
21	32
22	40
23	64
24	32
25	32
26	16

Total	326
0	1
1	16
2	49
3	66
4	40
5	36
6	42
7	20
8	8
9	8
10	8
11	16
12	16

Including the middle layer

Turn metric:

Turn metric
Twistable positions:

Twist metric:

0	1
1	71
2	1301
3	1656
4	8153
5	15853
6	38951
7	50138
8	62048
9	65948
10	54328
11	97552
12	54430
13	56710
14	40568

Total	844992 = 3263636*2
15	62284
16	36776
17	38680
18	11468
19	19620
20	14992
21	10360
22	5756
23	10948
24	25360
25	20720
26	11480
27	19592
28	9248

0	1
1	7
2	17
3	44
4	117
5	229
6	367
7	354
8	356
9	356
10	280
11	280
12	254
13	206

Total	4032 = 2016*2
14	240
15	156
16	88
17	72
18	60
19	52
20	48
21	48
22	76
23	100
24	96
25	64
26	56
27	8

Total	652 = 326*2
0	1
1	16
2	65
3	116
4	106
5	76
6	78
7	62
8	28
9	16
10	16
11	24
12	32
13	16

Notation:

A twist of the right hand side of the puzzle will be denoted by a slash /.
A clockwise turn of the top layer by less than a half turn to the next twistable arrangement is denoted by U. Similarly an anti-clockwise turn of the top layer is U'. A half turn of the top layer, regardless of whether there are any intermediate twistable states is denoted by U2.
In the same way, a clockwise turn, half turn, and anti-clockwise turn of the bottom layer are denoted by D, D2, and D' respectively.

Solution:

Hold the puzzle so that the middle layers big red section is at the front-left, with the green or orange piece at the front-right. The middle layer seam lies between them.
Do whatever moves are necessary to bring the two largest (red) pieces together, side by side in the same layer. This can always be done in no more than 4 twists, but usually in one or two. You have to manoeuvre the two red pieces so that they are in different layers, one at the front and one at the back, and on opposite sides of the seam, so that a twist will bring them together. This is fairly easy and tends to happen automatically when doing random moves.
Put the two big red pieces in the left half of the bottom layer. This keeps them out of the way allowing you to work on the rest using twists and top layer turns only.
Without disturbing the big red pieces, do whatever moves are necessary to place the two smallest pieces (purple) in the top right half, one at the front directly to the right of the seam, the other at the back directly to the right of the seam. In exceptional cases, this can take up to 7 twists, but is usually much less. Usually just doing random twists and top layer turns suffice to bring the two purple pieces to the top layer, the right distance apart for a top layer turn to put them both directly to the right of the seam.
Do a twist move to place the two small purple pieces adjacent to the two big red pieces.
Rotate the top layer so that a yellow or a green pair of pieces is at the front, straddling the seam, and do the same with bottom layer red pair. There are only 8 possible positions that the puzzle can now have. Look up this position in the table below, and do the indicated move sequence to solve the outer layers.
If the middle layer is not yet solved, you can flip the right-hand side of the middle layer, by doing U2 / U2 / U2 /.

Here is a table with the finishing sequences for the eight goal positions. The number in the final column is the number of twistable positions with the reds adjacent to each other from which that goal position can be reached without splitting the reds. It gives a rough measure of how likely each goal position is to occur.

1	/ U2	132
2	/ U2 D' / D	6
3	/ U' / U'	6
4	/ D' / U' D / U	24
5	/ U' / U D' / U2 D	24
6	/ U / U' D' / U2 D	6
7	/ U' / U' D' / D	6
8	/ D / U D' / U' D / U2 D	6

Jaap's Puzzle Page

Nautilus

The number of positions:

Links to other useful pages:

Notation:

Solution: