Rubik’s Cube By Angus Wai

Fun Facts! A Rubik’s Cube has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible configurations. If you turned Rubik’s Cube once every second it would take you 1400 TRILLION YEARS to finish to go through all the configurations. Every position of the Rubik's Cube can be solved in twenty moves or less, it’s called the “God‘s Number”.

Rubik’s cube notations

How fast can I solve it? 1. 00:49.64 6. 01:00.11 2. 00:51.40 7. 01:02.15 3. 00:52.96 8. 01:07.05 4. 00:54.47 9. 01:07.26 5. 00:58.10 10. 01:14.73

Data (secs) 1. 49.64 6. 60.11 μ: 59.8 2. 51.40 7. 62.15 σ: 7.67 3. 52.96 8. 67.05 4. 54.47 9. 67.26 5. 58.10 10. 74.73

Z-scores 3. 52.96 -0.8901 4. 54.47 -0.6932 5. 58.10 -0.2199 6. 60.11 0.0421 7. 62.15 0.3081 x - μ z = -------- σ

Factors Luck Skill Observation Practice

Q#1 What is the probability that I can solve my Rubik’s cube within 40s? Z-score of 40s = (40 – 59.8)/7.67 =-2.58 ∴ possibility is 0.0049 × 100% = 0.49%

Q#2 My friend challenged me to solve my Rubik’s cube within X seconds, I am 70% confident. Find X. 70% = 0.7000 z-score: 0.53 ∴ 0.53 × 7.67 + 59.8 = 63.87s

Q#3 What is the median? The median is: (58.10 + 60.11) ÷ 2 = 59s.

Sources http://cube20.org https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.buzzfeed.com/simoncrerar/rubiks-cube- facts&ved=0ahUKEwjeg83otczRAhVrr1QKHa_2CIEQFggtMAM&usg=AFQjCNGCN_goExvY9hjyk1msLM_Tl2M5ig&sig2=2w wGyS4vek7eksTewK1UIA https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.learnhowtosolvearubikscube.com/rubiks-cube-fun- facts/&ved=0ahUKEwjeg83otczRAhVrr1QKHa_2CIEQFgg6MAQ&usg=AFQjCNHRHxKV42ZT_SSXnxX2G0E6eWu- lg&sig2=U74Pedr2dxZD6sZcO_gXgw https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandco nsumer/11745738/12-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-Rubiks-Cube-the-worlds-best-selling- toy.html&ved=0ahUKEwjeg83otczRAhVrr1QKHa_2CIEQFgiCATAQ&usg=AFQjCNFMdDDyvsskh_2NHr8ScTETGYu5Iw&sig2=f _lh_aHJsihyD0hIleoefA