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ORLY?: Any Rubik's Cube Combination Can Be Solved In 20 Moves Or Less

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Apparently researchers have finally discovered just how many moves it takes to solve any Rubik's Cube combination. And that number is 20. We're all sleeping well tonight!

The international team used a bank of computers at Google to help crank through the solutions.


The figure is known as "God's number" because an all-knowing entity would know the optimal number of steps needed to solve the puzzle.

"We now know for certain that the magic number is 20," Professor Morley Davidson, a mathematician from Kent State University, told BBC News.

The results suggest that there are more than 100,000 starting positions - of a possible 43 billion billion - that can be solved in exactly 20 moves.

However, the majority of solutions take between 15 and 19 moves to solve.

There you have it, straight from the the scientists who sit around thinking about toys all day (crunch some cancer numbers, God!). that said, I can solve any Rubik's Cube combination in one move, with a single finger. Two if I've been drinking and accidentally shoot myself in the pecker first. DO-OVER, I GET A DO-OVER.

Rubik's Cube quest for speedy solution comes to an end [bbc]

Thanks to Starchitect, who can solve any Rubik's cube in over 100,000 moves over the span of two years. You're a winner!

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