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Robot Solves Rubik's Cube In Less Than a Second (livescience.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from LiveScience: In just over half of a second (0.637 seconds), the Sub1 Reloaded robot made each side of the Rubik's Cube show a single color. This breaks the previous record of 0.887 seconds achieved by an earlier version of the same machine using a different processor. German technology company Infineon staged the record attempt at the Electronica trade fair in Munich this week, as a way to highlight its self-driving-car technology. The company provided one of the Sub1 Reloaded robot's microchips. Infineon said more than 43 quintillion combinations of the Rubik's Cube's colored squares are possible. That same number of cubes would cover Earth in 275 layers, resulting in an approximately 65.6-foot-high (20 meters) layer of Rubik's Cubes, the company added. The record-breaking attempt began with the press of a button. Sensor cameras on the machine had their shutters removed, and the computer was then able to detect how the cube was scrambled. The computing chip, or the "brain" of the machine as Infineon called it, then determined the fastest solution. Commands to execute the solution were sent to six motor-controlled arms. "It takes tremendous computing power to solve such a highly complex puzzle with a machine," Infineon said in a statement. "In the case of 'Sub1 Reloaded,' the power for motor control was supplied by a microcontroller from Infineon's AURIX family, similar to the one used in driver assistance systems."
The cube was a puddle of melted plastic.
How is solving a rubik's cube ANYTHING like self driving? That's worse than thinking a computer that can solve Go is ready to drive a car.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
If indeed "this breaks the previous record of 0.887 seconds achieved by an earlier version", then the headline is old news.
I remember last time this machine set the record, there was some debate as to whether it should count, as the cube has to be modified in order to be mounted in it. The robot doesn't grasp the cube, but rather its six arms have pins that are inserted into holes drilled in the center square of each side.
Although that doesn't include the time he was allowed to examine it before starting. Here's the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLksISrKtO8
As resilient as these toys are, I'm not sure a standard Rubik's Cube could stand up to that kind of violence...
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What is the math here that makes it 43 quintillion combinations? There are 8 corner pieces with 8 possible positions and 3 orientations, and 12 edge pieces with 12 possible positions and 2 orientations. Not all combinations are possible.
Solves -which- permutation of a Rubik's cube in less than a second? Every single one? How can they prove that before the end of the universe?
I'd be more worried about the damn cube flying apart with these increasing speeds, not the CPU behind it. Overshoot a rotation and then start the next one before you correct it, and the cube will explode. Humans will not generate the force necessary to break a healthy cube, but even then they still sometimes come apart under these conditions (without breaking, the center pieces are spring-loaded).
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
That's why we make them. My chainsaw makes much faster work of a tree than I could chewing it with my teeth. I don't even want to think how long that would take.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
but I want it now....
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The machine solved a Rubik's Cube in less than a second. That's great! Ok, I think we can all agree that this task has been won by the machines. Any further attempt to make a Rubik's solving machine is a waste of time. How about designing a machine that can solve the 4X4X4 cube? That would be a lot more difficult, because you couldn't just stick suction cup rods to the center pieces. Or how about that 7X7X7 cube? Now *THAT* I would like to see!
The earth-destroying scenario presented in the summary sounds like an xkcd/what if comic in the making.
I had a Rubik's cube in the early 1980's and found that it was faster to pop it apart an reassemble it in the correct order.
When a robot can do that, then I will be impressed..........
They're making the cube sound harder than it is. The difficulty doesn't correspond well to the number of combinations. Back in the 80s when I played with them, the solution technique I knew was based on recognizing that the components of a cube could be flipped or twisted, with the flip or twist balanced out by another component. Then you simply executed moves to undo the flip or twist. My best times were 3 minutes or so, which sucks now but I bet the solution algorithms have gotten way more sophisticated. Anyway, a kid can memorize the algorithm so it can't be that hard. I'm guessing any modern CPU executes it so fast that most of the time is taken up by the movements of the robot.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
... In any case mine never ever turned, slided and stopped as smoothly as this one does.
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with a can of paint I could " make each side of the Rubik's Cube show a single color" in half that time. With a decent research grant I might even be able to make each face a different color.
Nullius in verba
"It takes tremendous computing power to solve such a highly complex puzzle with a machine" BOLLOCKS! I wrote a BASIC program to solve Rubik's cube on a Sharp PC-1500 pocket computer back in 1982 (and I was a teenager!). It was less than 3K (I had a RAM expansion module) and ran happily on an 8-bit Z80 CPU. Input the cube status data, wait, follow the printed instructions. Tremendous computing power my ass.
I agree. Further, (like a good Slashdotter, I did not bother to RTFA), it doesn't look like an actual Rubik's Cube to me, but rather a knockoff brand (the colors are incorrect?).
Maybe Trump could build a border wall from Rubik's Cubes?