Rubik's Cube World Championships

cadaeibfed writes "Coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the iconic puzzle's introduction to the world was the second Rubik's world championship, held in Orlando, FL this weekend. Competing under official World Cube Association rules, competitors from around the world vied for recognition in this nerd olympiad. Some new world records set include the 4x4 solve, solving using only feet, and blindfolded solving. The winner, Jean Pons of France, finished with an average solution time of 15.10 seconds on a standard 3x3 cube. Here are the full results."

Comments

Cube Theory = Group Theory

[ankarbass]

While just solving the cube quickly may be interesting. I think it's far more interesting that the cube movements can be thought of elements of a subgroup of a very large permutation group, S48 to be precise. If you have some math background and like abstract things you might want to take a look at Adventures in Group Theory : Rubik's Cube, Merlin's Machine, and Other Mathematical Toys which, despite the title is a fairly serious little math book.

Friend of mine can do this

[raoul666]

Young guy, mid teens. I first saw him do it at a poker tournament I was running. We were using the cube as the dealer button, so whenever it go to him, he'd start working on it. By the time the next hand had started, even if we hadn't even seen the flop, it'd be solved and back on the table. He was probably doing it in 35-45 seconds, but still, it was amazing to watch.

Here's something on the origins of the thing, and

[putko]

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa040497 .htm

The history of it is interesting. It seems multiple folks developed similar items around the same time.

Fun with Rubik's Cube geeks...

[Geeky]

1. Take cube apart.

2. Put back together in random order so it can't be solved.

3. Give to cube geek.

4. Watch them sweat as their moves don't work.

5. .. er, profit?

Of course, these serious cubers would probably take one look at the cube and immediately tell you it had been tampered with.

Sad news. I'm old enough to remember these when they first came out. I feel very, very old. Anyone remember Rubik's snake?

Been There, Done That

[ajs318]

I remember the Rubik's Cube from first time around. I knew a few different "complete solutions" -- depending on the initial state, one might be significantly faster than the others. I rarely needed longer than a minute. My friend and I built a fake "cube solving machine" from an old washing machine box, with a hatch tor loading the "scrambled" cube, a drawer for removing the "solved" cube -- and me inside with a bicycle lamp, and a cassette recorder for sound effects!

Obviously you cannot have just five faces "solved", but it is also not possible to have just four faces "solved". You can render a cube insoluble by reversing one of the two-sided pieces, or rotating one of the three-sided pieces. The easiest way to split a cube apart is to rotate one side by 45 degrees, and push the protruding corner piece until its latch pops out. Reassembly is done by inserting one of the two-sided pieces last. I have also seen evidence of very bad sticker-peeling, where one of the two-sided pieces carried the colours of opposite centres and one of the three-sided pieces carried the same colour on each face!

Rubik's Snake was boring: all you could really make with it was a dog and a football.

Rubik's Magic was a little better, because there were two different puzzles on the go: arranging the eight hinged squares to create a shape {4 x 2 rectangle, 3 x 3 square with corner missing, or various solids} and orientating the components of the shape to produce a picture {three separated rings on the rectangle, or three linked rings on the 3-3-2}.

I remember Rubik's Clock best of all. I was given one of the first ones in the country, which my parents got from a toy shop in Yorkshire. It took me nearly two days to crack it -- and then I could not believe just how daft I had been in not spotting it sooner. The secret is to ghea gur pbeare onpxjneqf, ratntr vgf ohggba naq ghea rirelguvat sbejneqf gbtrgure.