Did you know the 43 quintillion possible scrambles for a Rubik’s cube? (43 to the power of 1018) The number is so big most calculators can’t even calculate it. To put into perspective, 43 quintillion scrambled cubes would stretch to the sun and back eight million times. There are 18 different ways to can manipulate a single piece. Mathematicians have tried to find something called “God’s Number” God’s number is a term used to explain what is the least amount of moves you can make to solve a scrambled Rubik’s cube? Technically, if you scramble the cube by 25 moves, you can solve it in 25 moves if you turn it back the same way how you scrambled it. But what if you could solve it in even less moves? That is the question mathematicians have been trying to solve since the Rubik’s cube took the world by storm in the 1980s. Using computers, the lowest we have ever gone is 20 moves. There have been multiple cases where the number is 20, but none have ever gone as low as 20, hence why people think god’s number is 20. Kociemba made a program called Cube Explorer, who puts scrambled cubes into categories depending on certain characteristics. Today, about 100 000 people are speed cubers to be at a level where you can get a world record is not only dependent on skill, but also luck in your scramble. In the end, many people will never be able to get to the level of Max Park, one of the world’s best speed cuber. But maybe, if you picked up the cube, you might be the next Max Park.
Sources:
Palmer, J. (2008). Cracking the last mystery of the Rubik’s cube. New Scientist, 199(2668), 40–43. https://doi-org.bc.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/S0262-4079(08)62007-2
Costello, E. (2018). PUZZLE SOLVER: Meet the reigning Rubik’s Cube champ. Science World, 75(6), 14–17