Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 09:04:15 -0500 (EST)
From: Dan Hoey <Hoey@aic.nrl.navy.mil>
To: "Allan C. Wechsler" <acw@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: [math-fun] Permutation group problem
cc: math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com>

"Allan C. Wechsler" <acw@alum.mit.edu> wrote about:

> [...] the name of the algorithm for determining whether a given
> permutation can be expressed as a product of given generators: it's
> the Furst-Hopcroft-Luks algorithm.

I should probably have responded earlier, when you mentioned you had
learned the name from the Rubik's Cube list.  I believe I introduced
the algorithm there under that name.

Since then, I have been reliably informed that the algorithm is more
usually and properly known as Sims's algorithm.  The paper by Furst,
Hopcroft, and Luks was essentially a formalization and analysis of the
algorithm that Charles C. Sims described in 1967.  I regret the
mistaken attribution.

Dan