April 6, 2017
Science
The largest Rubik’s cube
A group of students at the University of Michigan overcame all the difficulties and finally built the world’s largest Rubik’s Cube. Designing this cube in a way that allowed it to spin was a challenge for the students.
The larger the cube the greater the friction will be. With the cube being so large they had to figure out how the moves of the cube could be carried out. The students knew that they had to overcome the problems of friction and grip.
They used two teams of mechanical engineering students and an Advisor to work out how to deal with the friction and grip of the large cube. This team finally worked it out. I reckon you will find that learning the Rubik’s Cube is easier.
Science and the Rubik’s cube
Science
There are 43 possible configurations of a Rubik’s Cube.
In 1997 it was believed that a Rubik’s Cube from any scrambled position could be solved in a minimum of 27 moves.
In 2007 this belief was challenged by a computer science professor by the name of Gene Coopman.
He along with grad student Dan Kunkleput spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, funded by the National Science Foundation to prove this theory.
In their study they developed 20 terabytes of storage using new techniques in mathematical group theory and 7 terabytes of RAM – to run single cube moves 100,000,000 times per second.
Coopman believed the results of this study could benefit oher researchers in other analytical studies.
In 1997 UCLA professor Richard Korf carried out a study and came to the conclusion that the cube could be solved in a minimum of 18 moves. Despite his conclusion no one was ever able to solve the cube under 27 moves.
Today studies of the cube conclude that any scrambled Cube can be solved in a minimum of 20 moves.
Science
Conclusion
Today there have been many Rubik’s Cube studies carried out by Scientists. These studies have produced valid results. The results of these studies has given You and I a better understanding about solving the Cube.