Solving the Rubik’s Cube in 20 Moves or Less

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In 1974 the Rubik’s Cube was created by Erno Rubik, a Hungarian professor who designed a 26 colored cube, which would one day to his dismay be the best puzzle ever sold.  The three dimensional puzzle was once called the magic cube and was awarded the best puzzle of the year in 1980.  A pivot mechanism inside the cube allows you to move the cube and match up the colors.  Recently, researchers have teamed up with Google to see if they can shred the best time for the least moves with the Rubik’s Cube.

Sometime in 1981, researcher, Morwen Thistlethewaite discovered a way to beat the Rubik’s Cube with a reported 52 moves to solve the puzzle from any given side or position and in 1992 the record was broken by Michael Reid with a matter of only 39 moves, which proved to be the very same solution, aligning all the colors.  However, one year later Dik Winter completed the puzzle in 37 moves.

After more than a decade later, Google is determined to be a part of breaking the record with 20 moves or less and in less time.  The Rubik’s Cube has been several people’s fascination and with borrowed technology, the average person is going to know how to solve the puzzle hopefully soon.  Scientists have wanted to know the secrets to completing the Cube for years now and know that it may be more complicated than they ever thought.  Aligning the colors may be the solution, but unfortunately there is a lot more to it than just that as we already know.

Although Google is not inclined to give us any hints about the technology that they are lending to enthusiasts at this time, they are determined to reach a solution and complete the puzzle in 20 moves or less.  Since the puzzle is solved by an algorithm, these math geniuses should not take too long to figure out the secrets.  The sequences along with the latest Google technology will allow the intelligent team to provide the results the world is anticipating.

It has been known that the team has taken just a few weeks to crunch through billions of Cube positions and solve each one with the help of powerful computers.  The researchers said, “There are many different algorithms, varying in complexity and number of moves required, but those that can be memorized by a mortal typically require more than forty moves.” It took fifteen years after the introduction of the Cube to find the first position that provably requires 20 moves to solve.  It is appropriate that fifteen years after that, we prove that twenty moves suffice for all position.”

It just so happens, that the Algorithm used is known as God’s Algorithm and the number of moves in God’s Algorithm is called God’s Number, which is known to be 20.  Now does that seem like a coincidence in your eyes, provide your comments below and tell us what you think?