And that's because if you don't know the moves the Rubik's cube is one of the most difficult mainstream puzzles ever created frankly.

這是因為如果你不知道魔術方塊的動作，坦率地說，魔術方塊是有史以來最難的主流拼圖之一。

The three by three by three is too hard.

3乘3乘3太難了。

Okay, It really is Now.

好了，真的是現在。

A lot of that has to do with the fact that there are literally billions of billions of ways to scramble this thing.

這在很大程度上與這樣一個事實有關，即實際上有數十億種方法來擾亂這個東西。

But what's equally incredible is that with a few weeks of dedicated practice and a little bit of memorization, most people can learn to solve any of those scrambles in a few minutes, but there are some people who can solve it even faster a lot faster.

但同樣令人難以置信的是，通過幾周的專門練習和一點點的記憶，大多數人可以在幾分鐘內學會解決任何一個爭分奪秒的問題，但也有一些人甚至可以更快地解決它很多。

They're called speed cubers and the best of them can whip a Rubik's cube into shape in well under 10 seconds.

他們被稱為快速立方體，他們中最好的人可以在10秒內將一個魔術方塊打成形狀。

As if that weren't impressive enough.

彷彿這還不夠令人印象深刻。

The single fastest solve ever recorded in competition is a ludicrous 3.47 seconds.

有史以來在比賽中記錄的單一最快解法是可笑的3.47秒。

But could that time go down today, we're going to look at why solving a Rubik's cube in under three seconds is almost impossible to find out what it takes.

但這個時間能不能下去，今天我們就來看看為什麼在三秒內解出魔術方塊幾乎是不可能的，看看需要什麼。

I spoke to a world record holder got a crash course in technique from some local speed cubers.

我和一位世界紀錄保持者談過，他從當地的一些速成人員那裡得到了技術方面的速成課程。

Now the problem here is you notice that things here on the edge don't match the problem here is that I don't even see that that's a problem here and talked about the mind boggling math behind the cube with a computer scientist, there are more positions on the Rubik's cube than there are grains of sand on all your speeches.

現在的問題是，你注意到這裡的東西在邊緣上不匹配，這裡的問題是，我甚至沒有看到這是一個問題，並與一位計算機科學家談到了魔術方塊背後令人費解的數學，魔術方塊上的位置比你所有演講中的沙粒還要多。

The Rubik's Cube was invented by Hungarian architect Erno Rubik in 1974.

Rubik's Cube是由匈牙利建築師Erno Rubik在1974年發明的。

It actually started out as an experiment, Rubik wanted to know if it was possible to design a cube made of smaller blocks that can move independently without falling apart.

它實際上是作為一個實驗開始的，魯比克想知道是否有可能設計一個由較小的積木組成的立方體，可以獨立移動而不散開。

It was only later that he realized he also created a puzzle And that puzzle got very popular.

後來，他才意識到自己也創造了一個謎題，而且這個謎題非常受歡迎。

It wasn't long before people were competing to see who could solve it fastest.

沒過多久，人們就開始競爭，看誰能最快解決這個問題。

At the first World Rubik's Cube Championships in 1982, competitors took up to a minute to solve the Cube, but speed solvers like world record holder Felix's MDX have been chipping away at those times ever since almost 100 competitions all around the world, broken a bunch of world records and won a bunch of world championships.

在1982年的第一屆世界魔術方塊錦標賽上，選手們花了長達一分鐘的時間來解決魔術方塊問題，但像世界紀錄保持者菲利克斯的MDX這樣的速解器，從那時起就一直在削去這些時間，在世界各地進行了近100場比賽，打破了一堆世界紀錄，贏得了一堆世界冠軍。

One round in competition consists of five solve attempts.

一輪比賽包括五次解題嘗試。

A computer randomly generates the scrambles to make sure they're difficult enough and each competitor solves the same five scrambles You get asked, are you ready?

計算機隨機生成爭奪題，以確保它們足夠困難，每個參賽者都要解決同樣的五個爭奪題，你會被問到，你準備好了嗎？

They'll take off the cover and then you have up to 15 seconds to look at the Cube and start the timer.

他們會取下蓋子，然後你有最多15秒的時間來觀察立方體並開始計時。

So you get the time to look at it.

所以你有時間去看一下。

Then you have to place your hands down on the timer and then stole the Cube and then return your hands to like the stack.

然後你必須把你的手放在計時器上，然後偷走立方體，再把你的手放回像堆。

That timer.

那個計時器。

Now is probably a good place to mention that Diehard cubers actually care more about average times than single solves fact is sometimes you just get a lucky scramble, a better test of a speed cubers skill is to have them solve five cubes and average the three middle times.

現在也許是個好地方，要提到死硬派的立方體實際上更關心平均時間而不是單次解題，事實是有時你只是得到了一個幸運的爭奪，對快速立方體技能的更好的測試是讓他們解決五個立方體，然後平均三個中間時間。

Xem Dags currently holds the average solve record of 5.69 seconds But single solve times still matter.

Xem Dags目前保持著5.69秒的平均解題記錄，但單次解題時間仍然重要。

And Zendaya is used to hold that record too with a time of 4.22 seconds.

而贊達亞也曾以4.22秒的成績保持這一紀錄。

That was until Chinese speed Cuba Yusheng du demolished it last fall with a time of 3.47 seconds.

直到去年秋天，中國速度型古巴人杜雨生以3.47秒的成績將其擊潰。

So how unexpected was it for somebody to come along and break your single solve record by like three quarters of a second.

那麼，有人來打破你的單次解決記錄，就像四分之三秒一樣，這是多麼出人意料的事情。

That was pretty unexpected to be honest.

說實話，這很出乎意料。

Like in in speed cubing you don't often see those sorts of insane jumps in time, You can still get like a really incredibly quick solve just on one attempt if you have an easy scramble and a bit of luck and it just so happened that you know there's so many people going to so many competitions all the time that something like this was probably bound to happen but we didn't really expect it that soon.

就像在速算中，你不經常看到那種瘋狂的時間跳躍，如果你有一個簡單的爭奪和一點運氣，你仍然可以得到一個非常令人難以置信的快速解決，它只是碰巧，你知道有這麼多的人一直去參加這麼多的比賽，這樣的事情可能一定會發生，但我們真的沒有想到它那麼快。

Okay, so let's put speed cubing aside for a second because a lot of people myself included have never solved the Rubik's cube at all in any amount of and that's because truly solving one, like from scratch without any help from anybody without watching any online tutorial videos, it's really, really hard.

好吧，讓我們把速算放在一邊，因為很多人包括我自己在內都沒有解過魔術方塊，這是因為真正的解魔，比如從頭開始，沒有任何人的幫助，沒有看任何在線教程視頻，這真的非常非常難。

The truth is if you see somebody solving a Rubik's cube, they are almost definitely using a memorized sequence of moves to do it.

事實是，如果你看到有人在解魔術方塊，他們幾乎肯定是在使用記憶中的動作序列來完成。

This is Tyson Mao, he's a co founder of the World cube Association and I asked him to teach me the basics.

這是泰森-毛，他是世界立方體協會的共同創始人，我請他教我基本知識。

I would say there are probably three things to think about in terms of what makes someone fast at solving the cube.

我想說的是，在使一個人快速解決立方體的問題方面，可能有三件事需要考慮。

The first one is the method.

第一個是方法。

There are many methods for solving a cube but they all rely on something the Cubans call algorithms memorized sequences of moves that players use to solve the cube section by section.

解決立方體的方法有很多，但它們都依賴於古巴人稱之為算法的東西，即玩家用來逐段解決立方體的記憶動作序列。

Now, as a rule of thumb, the more algorithms, you know, the fewer moves, you'll need to solve the cube.

現在，作為一個經驗法則，算法越多，你知道，動作越少，你就需要解決這個立方體。

A beginner who has committed fewer than 10 algorithms to memory might solve a Cuban, say 100 and 20 moves.

一個將少於10種算法記入記憶的初學者可能會解決一個古巴人的問題，例如100和20步。

While an expert who has memorized hundreds of algorithms can solve the Cuban closer to 50 or 60 moves and as you might expect fewer moves can translate to faster solves the second thing that contributes to you know, how long it takes to solve the cube is how fast you can turn to cube.

雖然一個已經記住了數百種算法的專家可以在接近50或60步內解決古巴人的問題，而且正如你可能期望的那樣，更少的動作可以轉化為更快的解決，第二件有助於你知道，解決立方體需要多長時間的事情是你能多快地轉到立方體。

The fastest speed cubers in the world average around 10 turns per second over the course of an entire solve and a lot more than that in short bursts take this 16 move finishing sequence for example, it looks like this 1234 with this ring finger 5678.

在整個解題過程中，世界上速度最快的立方體平均每秒鐘轉10圈左右，而且在短時間內比這多得多，以這個16步完成的序列為例，它看起來像這個1234和這個無名指5678。

And now you gotta push back with this ring finger 9 10 11, 12, pull 13 14, 15, 16, push The top people can execute those 16 moves in under one second.

現在你得用這個無名指向後推 9 10 11 12 拉 13 14 15 16 推 頂尖的人可以在一秒鐘之內完成這16個動作。

Are you serious?

你是認真的嗎？

That's amazing.

這真令人吃驚。

The third thing that contributes to how long it takes to solve the Cube is, how long it takes you to process the information.

導致解決Cube需要多長時間的第三件事是，你需要多長時間來處理資訊。

It doesn't help you if it takes you five seconds to figure out what the next step is.

如果你花了五秒鐘才搞清楚下一步是什麼，這對你沒有幫助。

Your goal is to try to look ahead and see what the moves for the next step are while you're doing the current one and reducing the pause between those steps.

你的目標是努力向前看，在做當前步驟的同時看看下一步的動作是什麼，減少這些步驟之間的停頓。

And then there's the hardware itself.

然後是硬件本身。

As you can see there are lots of different types of three by three cubes from the old school version which was clunky stiff and hard to turn to fancy new models that spin with ease and include tiny magnets to help the faces snap into position.

正如你所看到的，有很多不同類型的三乘三立方體，從笨重僵硬、難以轉動的老式版本，到輕鬆旋轉、包括微小磁鐵以幫助面孔卡入位置的花式新模型。

The actual hardware itself has evolved to the point now where it's like, it's really, really good.

實際的硬件本身已經發展到現在的地步，它就像，真的，真的很好。

Like if you give me a cube from five years ago, it's probably taking off like a second off myself time.

就像如果你給我一個五年前的立方體，它可能會把我自己的時間減掉一秒。

If you're going to be a good cuba back in the day, you have to learn how to make, you have to learn how to prepare a cube and make it good.

如果你要成為當年的好古巴人，你必須學會如何製作，你必須學會如何準備一個立方體，並使它變得很好。

And so that would involve is you take the cube apart.

是以，這將涉及到你把立方體拆開。

You know if there are imperfections, you might send some of those things down.

你知道如果有不完美的地方，你可能會把其中的一些東西送下去。

You lubricate it with some silicone, let it dry, put it back together, re sticker, you know adjust the tension on the screws.

你用一些硅膠潤滑它，讓它乾燥，把它裝回去，重新貼上，你知道調整螺絲的張力。

It was, it was a big effort over time as more manufacturers entered the space um cubes just got a lot better in quality.

這是，這是一個很大的努力，隨著時間的推移，更多的製造商進入這個空間，嗯，立方體的品質得到了很大改善。

Um so the kids these days they don't know how good they have it.

嗯，所以現在的孩子們不知道他們有多好。

Like the improvement in the cube technology has caused a change in some of these economics that move that I showed you earlier.

像立方體技術的改進已經引起了一些我早些時候向你們展示的這些經濟活動的改變。

There was absolutely no way you could make a turn with this fourth ring finger the way that people turn the key And the you know the hand movements that people use evolved as a result of cubes getting better.

你絕對不可能用第四根無名指像人們轉動鑰匙那樣轉動，你知道人們使用的手部動作是隨著立方體的改進而演變的。

So now taught me a method for solving the cube that he shows the beginners following his instructions.

所以現在教給我一個解立方體的方法，他按照他的訓示給初學者看。

It took me 45 minutes to solve the Cube for my very first time.

我花了45分鐘才解決了第一次的魔術方塊。

What I think if you spent the next two weeks on this you probably get your time down to about 90 seconds, 90 seconds.

我認為，如果你在接下來的兩個星期裡花在這上面，你可能會把你的時間縮短到大約90秒，90秒。

Okay, I'm gonna try To get to a point where I can solve the Cube consistently using the Method Tyson has given me today in under 90 seconds and we'll see how just that actually.

好吧，我將嘗試達到一個點，即我可以用泰森今天給我的方法在90秒內持續解決立方體，我們將看看這究竟是怎麼回事。

So I took my new cube and got to practicing in the first few days I went from needing around 20 minutes to solve the cube to just under three.

於是我拿著我的新魔術方塊開始練習，在最初的幾天裡，我從需要20分鐘左右的時間來解決魔術方塊，到現在只需要不到3分鐘。

Not bad for a newbie but that's still an eternity for someone like Tiffany Chen a local speed cuba who averages just under 10 seconds per solve.

對於一個新手來說，這還算不錯，但對於像蒂芙尼-陳這樣的當地速度型古巴人來說，這仍然是一個永恆的過程，她平均每解決一個問題都不到10秒。

She's so good.

她太厲害了。

She can solve a cube blindfolded and one handed just solved a Rubik's cube with one hand More than three times faster than I can solve it with two when you pick up a cube you don't look the way I look when I pick up a cube which is like it's manic.

她可以蒙著眼睛單手解魔術方塊，剛剛用一隻手解了一個魔術方塊，比我用兩隻手解魔術方塊快了三倍多，當你拿起一個魔術方塊時，你不會像我拿起一個魔術方塊時的樣子，這就像它的狂躁。

You are actually not going full tilt.

你實際上沒有全力以赴。

Oh yes definitely.

哦，是的，當然。

My hands can definitely move faster than like my brain can during the solve so it's limited not by how fast my hands can move than like what my brain can see when my eyes can see.

在解題過程中，我的手肯定能比我的大腦更快，所以它的限制不是我的手能移動多快，而是我的大腦能看到什麼，當我的眼睛能看到什麼。

So are you exercising that kind of restraint throughout the entirety of the solve?

那麼，你在整個解決過程中都在行使這種剋制嗎？

So my strategy in competition is definitely to like solve it as smoothly as possible like with no pauses uh because I find that if I try to turn quickly when I'm nervous I'll turn very poorly.

所以我在比賽中的策略肯定是儘可能順利地解決它，比如沒有停頓，呃，因為我發現如果我在緊張的時候試圖快速轉彎，我就會轉得很差。

I had her critique my solving, I'm gonna mess up real bad.

我讓她點評我的解題思路，我一定會搞砸的。

Ready?

準備好了嗎？

Oh no damn that's a slow 11 minute 41 seconds I'm ashamed.

哦，不，該死的，這是一個緩慢的11分41秒，我很慚愧。

Okay so do you have any tips based on that for starters?

好的，那麼在此基礎上，你有什麼提示嗎，作為初學者？

She said I should try opening with a more efficient.

她說，我應該嘗試用更有效的方式開場。

Move the second tip is more general for the entire self.

移動的第二個提示對整個自我來說更具有普遍性。

I noticed that you spend a lot of time like turning the whole cube around or like using your whole hand to turn the cube around.

我注意到你花了很多時間，比如把整個立方體轉過來，或者用你的整個手來轉過來。

So like during while you're doing the second layer you see the piece over here so you go like this or something but you can see pieces that are like on the other side of the cube.

所以就像在你做第二層的時候，你看到這裡的作品，所以你就像這樣或其他的東西，但你可以看到像在立方體的另一邊的作品。

So you shouldn't need to do so many rotations of the whole cube.

所以你應該不需要對整個立方體做那麼多的旋轉。

So given what we've learned about speed cubing, what is the lower limit, How fast can we go to figure that out?

那麼，鑑於我們所學到的關於速度立方體的知識，下限是什麼？我們能走多快才能算出來？

It helps to understand some of the math behind the cube.

這有助於理解立方體背後的一些數學知識。

And for that we turn to computer scientist tom Ricky.

為此，我們求助於計算機科學家湯姆-瑞奇。

There's 43 billion billion positions which is 43 quintillion right?

有430億億的位置，也就是43萬億，對嗎？

So it's really a big number.

所以這真的是一個很大的數字。

Rocky has been fascinated with the cube ever since he was a kid and around the turn of the millennium he started puzzling over one of the great unanswered questions of the cube.

洛基從小就對魔術方塊很著迷，在千禧年前後，他開始琢磨魔術方塊的一個巨大的未解之謎。

This is a little confusing at first but stick with me Of those 43 quintillion configurations.

這在一開始有點令人困惑，但請跟我一起堅持下去，這43個五百萬億的配置。

There are some of them like this that are very easy to solve.

有一些像這樣的問題是非常容易解決的。

If I handed you the Cuban the state, you know that it takes just one move to resolve it but most of the scrambles on the cube are a lot more complicated than that.

如果我把庫班的狀態交給你，你就知道只需要一步就能解決，但立方體上的大多數爭奪比這要複雜得多。

So the question Rocky wanted to answer was this, what is the maximum number of moves that would ever be required to solve the cube no matter how scrambled it is mathematicians call that figure God's number.

是以，洛基想回答的問題是，無論立方體如何混亂，解決這個問題所需的最大步數是多少，數學家稱這個數字為上帝之數。

And it went unknown for more than 30 years until Rocky and his colleagues figured it out.

而它在30多年裡一直不為人知，直到洛基和他的同事們發現了它。

We used um a really fast program with all sorts of clever tricks let us solve about a billion positions a second and then we used a billion seconds of computer time.

我們用嗯一個非常快的程序和各種巧妙的技巧讓我們一秒鐘解決大約10億個位置，然後我們用了10億秒的計算機時間。

Now.

現在。

A billion seconds of computer time.

10億秒的計算機時間。

Sounds like a long time.

聽起來是很長的時間。

And really it is except for if you've got thousands of computers, it's a lot less.

而且確實如此，除了如果你有成千上萬的電腦，就會少很多。

So what is God's number when it comes to the Rubik's cube 20 No matter how complicated the scramble gets, you're never more than 20 moves away from being completely solved and it's usually less than that.

那麼，當涉及到魔術方塊時，上帝的數字是什麼呢？ 20 無論爭奪戰變得多麼複雜，你離完全解決永遠不會超過20步，而且通常還不到這個數字。

Almost all positions require fewer than 20 moves 18 is the most common.

幾乎所有的位置都需要少於20步的棋，18是最常見的。

So your typical scramble you're going to get from your timer is going to take 18 moves to solve optimally.

是以，你從你的計時器中得到的典型爭奪戰將需要18步才能得到最佳解決。

Now you'll remember that the fastest speed cubers on Earth average about 10 turns of the cube per second If you divide God's number which remember is never more than 20 by 10 turns per second and you get solved times of under two seconds and look here's proof that it is physically possible to solve one in that time.

現在你會記得，地球上速度最快的立方體平均每秒轉10圈，如果你用上帝的數字（記得永遠不會超過20）除以每秒轉10圈，你會得到不到兩秒的解題時間，看這裡的證明，在這個時間內解決一個問題是物理上可能的。

In fact this robot can solve it in under one second.

事實上，這個機器人可以在一秒鐘內解決這個問題。

So from a purely mathematical standpoint, a sub 2 2nd solve by a human should be possible.

是以，從純數學的角度來看，人類在2秒內解決這個問題應該是可能的。

There's just two problems with that line of thinking First of all just because a computer can quickly identify the fewest number of moves to solve a cube, doesn't mean a human can match it, there's nobody out there that can look at this cube and say ah I'm 18 moves from solved and this one takes me to 17, that's just not something which humans can do.

這種思路有兩個問題 首先，僅僅因為計算機能夠快速識別出解決一個立方體的最少步數，並不意味著人類能夠與之匹配，沒有人能夠看著這個立方體說，我還有18步就解決了，而這個立方體讓我走到了17步，這不是人類可以做到的。

And second even if a human could look at a cube and quickly identify the fewest number of moves required to solve it, there's no telling whether performing that sequence of moves would be any faster than their usual technique.

其次，即使人類能夠觀察一個立方體，並迅速識別出解決該問題所需的最少步驟，也不知道執行這一系列的步驟是否會比他們通常的技術快。

That's because there can be a trade off between the number of moves it takes to solve a cube and the speed at which you can execute those moves.

這是因為在解決一個立方體所需的動作數量和你執行這些動作的速度之間可能會有一個交易。

Ultimately solving the cube requires executing physical moves and the faster that you can execute those moves, the less time it takes to solve the cube.

最終，解決魔術方塊需要執行物理動作，你執行這些動作的速度越快，解決魔術方塊的時間就越短。

But it's not as simple as minimizing the number of moves and it's not you know ergonomics and other things come into play.

但這並不像最大限度地減少移動次數那麼簡單，而且你知道人體工程學和其他東西也在發揮作用。

So one example is you know this state which we notice that there are three stickers here that are not solved.

是以，一個例子是你知道這個狀態，我們注意到這裡有三張貼紙沒有解決。

Um We call this case the U.

嗯，我們把這種情況稱為U。

Permutation and originally when people were solving this there was a nine move sequence that that look like this and this is how people solve the cube.

最初人們在解決這個問題時，有一個九步走的序列，看起來像這樣，這就是人們解決立方體的方法。

Um But then over time I want to say around 2004, and 11 move sequence became more popular because it was just faster to execute.

但隨著時間的推移，我想說在2004年左右，11個動作序列變得更加流行，因為它只是執行得更快。

You know, you want to minimize the number of moves but you also want to be to make those moves quickly.

你知道，你想盡量減少動作的數量，但你也想快速地做出這些動作。

So what do speed cubers think the limits actually are?

那麼，速成者認為極限究竟是什麼？

People have asked me to speculate what the world record will eventually reach and every time I speculated I've been wrong so I'll take another shot at it again.

人們讓我猜測世界紀錄最終會達到什麼程度，每次我猜測的時候都是錯的，所以我再來試一試。

You know, you know, I think low fives is probably at least from an average, you know, maybe five flat as for the limits of a single solve in the next five years, I would expect probably something under three seconds.

你知道，你知道，我認為低五可能至少是從平均水平來看，你知道，也許是五平，至於在未來五年內單次解決的極限，我期望可能低於三秒的東西。

Give them just enough chances.

給他們足夠的機會。

My best ever single sold at home in practices like 301 but then there's a couple of people who've done like under three at home again just pretty much depends on like like Probably I could do it 2.5 but it's just when will happen faster times will come down to a combination of luck improvements in hardware.

我有史以來最好的單賣在家裡的做法像301，但然後有一對夫婦的人已經做了像在家裡的三個以下只是幾乎取決於像可能我可以做它2.5，但它只是當會發生更快的時間將歸結為一個組合的運氣在硬件的改進。

The development of more efficient methods and smoother execution.

發展更有效的方法和更順利的執行。

As for me for two weeks I brought a Rubik's cube with me everywhere I went and practiced at least 20 minutes a day.

至於我，兩個星期以來，我走到哪裡都帶著一個魔術方塊，每天至少練習20分鐘。

I got my single solved time down to 59 seconds and my best five solution average down to one minute eight seconds.

我的單次解題時間降至59秒，最佳五次解題平均時間降至1分8秒。

So I actually made a ton of progress and you probably could too.

所以我實際上取得了很大的進展，你可能也可以。

Well.

好吧。

I'm never going to compete with any of the world's fastest speed solvers.

我永遠不會和世界上任何一個最快的解題者競爭。

That's totally fine, because what they're doing is already almost impossible.

這完全沒問題，因為他們所做的事情已經幾乎不可能了。