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Rubik's Cube World Championships

Posted by samzenpus on from the the-thrill-of-athletic-competition dept.

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."

9 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Wow. by Capt'n+Hector · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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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    1. Re:Wow. by slack0ne · · Score: 5, Funny

      I found it easier to peel the stickers off. It took me weeks to actually solve one back in the day...

    2. Re:Wow. by metricmusic · · Score: 5, Funny

      pfftt. I remove the cover and unscrew the thing. Haven't made it under 15 seconds yet putting it back together *looks at mess in the corner*

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  2. Cube Theory = Group Theory by ankarbass · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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  3. Friend of mine can do this by raoul666 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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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    1. Re:Friend of mine can do this by gkhan1 · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's really not that hard to solve a cube in around a minute. You can learn the basic, layer by layer method in about a day, and after a few more, you've got it down to under two minutes. Then you just keep doing it to get it too about a minute, and all your friends will be amazed!! (it's seriously fun to do it on a subway, everybody looks in amazement :D) Too get a time consistantly under a minute, you probably need to learn more advanced methods, like for instance the petrus system or the friedrich system. Variations on the latter is what all the pros use, but it is murder to learn, you have to memorize around 100 algorithms!!! Myself, I've gotten down to about 30 secs using the standard, layer-by-layer and some of friedrich's algorithms. It really is alot of fun.

  4. Re:how... by kylemonger · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  5. Fun with Rubik's Cube geeks... by Geeky · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

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  6. the timing system... by ragahast · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...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)

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