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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."
15 seconds is rather insane. Yes, I know there are tricks and that there is a technique that will produce a solution. But they require quite a number of steps, all of which take time. Not to mention the need to recognize, store and process the locations of 27 color/point pairs for the win. Just... wow.
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Africus aut Europaeus?
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.
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
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.
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The second prize is an all day massage to get the RSI down a bit.
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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.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
You are given the scrambled cube to study for a time and then are blindfolded. You have to perform all the moves to solve the cube while blindfolded.
1. Take cube apart.
.. er, profit?
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.
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?
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
...is pretty awesome. They have each of the competitors solve their cubes, then follow the same steps to mix it up. Then each of the competitors places their cube on a central pad and their hands on two pads to either side. Each person has a their own digital timer, which will be activated when they lift their hands from the pads. A ref blows a whistle, the competitors lift their cubes and solve and then stop their timers by dropping the solved cube on the central pad. The best time I've seen is 12.3 seconds. Frickin' ridiculous. (I was working during the Caltech winter 2005 competition)
.:Semper Absurda:.
I was fortunate to be one of the first people in the world to play with a Rubik's Cube. In the late '70s, I worked with a woman who's husband worked for the Ideal Toy Co. in Jamaica, NY (that's Queens). She brought a secret prototype into work and all the engineers and technicians couldn't stop fighting over this thing; trying both to solve it and to figure out the mechanism. It was supposed to be hush-hush and she could have gotten her husband in trouble, but when she realized how obsessed we all were with it, she was afraid it would disappear.
It was only a few months later that they hit the market and I couldn't wait to get my hands on one. I eventually got to the point of being able to solve it consistently within a half hour or less. Then I lost interest in the challenge.
I also remember a Scientific American cover story (c. 1980), where I finally learned about the mechanism, disassembly and reassembly. Of course, they also discussed algorithms, but I wasn't interested in that. I never use cheats. Takes most of the fun out.
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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.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
You have a favourite solver? The sheer, unadulterated nerdiness of that brings a tear to my eye... God bless us, everyone.