Why It's Almost Impossible to Solve a Rubik's Cube in Under 3 Seconds

[*_ash_*]

1 hour ago, Waldo said:

Hi Ash,

 

This was like 30+ years ago for me. Solving it under a minute was rare for me; but this one time I did it while walking through a car park in Skegness with my parents and a couple of their friends. I must have been a 15-ish, maybe. I was playing around with a cube and my dad was telling his friend I could do it; and I was saying "yeah, in around a minute". My dad's friend just didn't believe it, and so he mixed it up and as we walked I solved it pretty quick. I remember him saying, even though he's just seen it, he still didn't believe it! Which very much amused me. There wasn't any great skill to it, just remembering around 10 or 12 different patterns (that I had on a photocopied sheet of A4) to solve the cube in stages.

 

I've not touched one in decades, and there's no way I'd remember how to do one now. Tempted to get one though, just out of curiosity.

Hi. Yes, I found that people always think I'm cheating to do it.

 

Like you say, once learned the stages it's not difficult.  It does take effort though to learn moves in first place. In the film it says nowadays there are cubes that move easier. Sometimes I found ones at people's houses and they so hard to move it probably not good for your wrists and hands.

 

Edited June 10, 2019 by *_ash_*

[Waldo]

4 hours ago, *_ash_* said:

Hi. Yes, I found that people always think I'm cheating to do it.

 

Like you say, once learned the stages it's not difficult.  It does take effort though to learn moves in first place. In the film it says nowadays there are cubes that move easier. Sometimes I found ones at people's houses and they so hard to move it probably not good for your wrists and hands.

 

Also they mention there are more move combinations today, 50+ I think they said. In addition, sometimes an 11 move combo is faster than a 9 move combo (that both achieve the same end result) because the 11 move version is physically quicker to execute.

 

As far as the 'cheating' goes, I wouldn't say it's cheating at all, certainly not in the way that removing and re-applying all the stickers, or taking apart and reassembling the cube, would be! Also, it would be near impossible to work it our from scratch, without the use of any algorithms / combos. I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt anyone on the planet could do that!

[Waldo]

27 minutes ago, Waldo said:

I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt anyone on the planet could do that!

Having said that, someone did work out the algorithms, so...

[*_ash_*]

3 hours ago, Waldo said:

Also they mention there are more move combinations today, 50+ I think they said. In addition, sometimes an 11 move combo is faster than a 9 move combo (that both achieve the same end result) because the 11 move version is physically quicker to execute.

 

As far as the 'cheating' goes, I wouldn't say it's cheating at all, certainly not in the way that removing and re-applying all the stickers, or taking apart and reassembling the cube, would be! Also, it would be near impossible to work it our from scratch, without the use of any algorithms / combos. I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt anyone on the planet could do that!

top bold: yes, this is something you notice when doing a lot. After about 3 stages (top completed) I can instantly tell whether it will be quick n easy or a pain. I can't move pieces to the right as easily as to the left (to solve the middle). This can add 30 seconds on to my completion time.

 

bottom bolds: 1. good! 2. Probably some, but like you say, can't be many.

3 hours ago, Waldo said:

Having said that, someone did work out the algorithms, so...

Yes of course there is that. I assume it was Mr Rubik at first.

 

Nowadays, computers can probably work out new ones.