-=> Quoting Bob Moylan to William Lipp to Ron Mcdermott to Dal Jencso <=-
 
 WL> My personal experience was playing with a puzzle called "Soma Cubes"
 WL> (I think).  It had seven 3-dimensional pieces each composed of 3 or 4
 WL> cubes in different configurations.  They could be combined to make a
 WL> 3x3x3 cube and other shapes.  When I first started I had to pick up a
 WL> piece and rotate it to figure out how it would fit with another piece.
 WL>  After a while I could imagine the rotation, I didn't need to actually
 WL> do it.
 BM> Kind of like the Rubic Cube of great popularity a few years ago?
 BM> After a while I could imagine the rotation and correct line up .. I
 BM> didn't need to actually do it.... 
That's another example of training three dimensional visualization, although
not as definitively so.  Rubic created his cube to have nontrivial examples
of the mathematical objects known as "groups" for his students.  Some people
soved the cube through developing an intuition for mathematical group
theory rather than visualization.  Soma Cubes were more like a three
dimensional jig saw puzzle.
 
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