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Rubik's Cube Now Solvable in 20 Moves

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the good-use-of-spare-time dept.

A few years ago we reported that it had been proven that Rubik's Cubes could be solved in 23 moves. Well now that number is down to just 20. Proving it required 35 years of computer time donated by Google to get it done.

3 of 309 comments (clear)

  1. There is a good reason by calderra · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I know it won't stem the tide, but this is good research. I'm sure there are a million other algorithms in the world that can benefit from this. Shortcuts they had to invent to make sure they were using minimal processing time, full understanding of how much money and time it really took to get this process done to make other projects more practical, etc etc. This sort of thinking, even if silly on its own, has a broad range of applications.

  2. Re:Enough! by Ngarrang · · Score: 3, Interesting

    More and more women are going braless, or are wearing a sports bra. Gone are the days of the hooks.

    --
    Bearded Dragon
  3. Re:Thank God! by Entropius · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There's a movement in health research now geared at extending what they call "healthspan" rather than just "lifespan" -- not "how long does this dude keep breathing", but "how long can we keep this dude active and happy"?

    Turns out that many of the things that make people live longer also make their late years healthier. My grandfather is 94 and still travels the world with his girlfriend (a spry young 75, but he'll never see her again now that she's taken up Farmville). He got prostate cancer a few years ago (and colon cancer a few decades ago), received aggressive treatment for it, and is now cancer-free and healthy.

    Old does not *have* to mean feeble. Sometimes it does, of course, and that's bad; this is why we should look at healthspan rather than lifespan.