qwr
Member
I am interested in the history of mathematics. For example, you may not have known the Fibonacci numbers were described by Indian mathematicians 2 millennia before Fibonacci, and a form of Gaussian elimination to solve a system of linear equations in Chinese mathematical texts 2 millennia before Gauss. That is what inspired me to try to find out the origins of algorithms. In math many times we can only do with first attested or recorded instance - we'll never know who was really the first person to write down the first couple prime numbers or discover the sune algorithm. New enough algs like the zoomer S move V perm we can be reasonably confident who invented. So my idea is to try to catalogue the earliest known inventors or recorded instances of algs.
Here is an example. I have recently decided to switch to the wide-F V perm. This is probably its origin, given the algorithm was found through computer search (if a computer lists an alg but it is never singled out by the author, it doesn't count)
Robert Yau found out about it, told Antonie Paterakis (according to this video) and it spread from there.
From Jessica Fridrich's site, we can credit certain algs to her, Mirek Goljan, and other speedcubers from around 1981-1983. Here are my observations about the PLLs:
Here is an example. I have recently decided to switch to the wide-F V perm. This is probably its origin, given the algorithm was found through computer search (if a computer lists an alg but it is never singled out by the author, it doesn't count)
Robert Yau found out about it, told Antonie Paterakis (according to this video) and it spread from there.
From Jessica Fridrich's site, we can credit certain algs to her, Mirek Goljan, and other speedcubers from around 1981-1983. Here are my observations about the PLLs:
- Ub: R²U Fs R²Bs U R², in modern notation R2 U (F B') R2 (B F') U R2, is equivalent R2 U S' U2 S U R2.
- Ab: lefty standard A perm
- Z: fascinating algs. Ls Ds2 Ls D Ls2 U' Bs2 in modern notation is (L R') (D2 U2) (L R') D (L2 R2) U' (B2 F2) is equivalent to M' S2 M D M2 D' S2
- H: Ra U² Ra'Fa'U² Fa in modern notation is (R L) U2 (R' L') (F' B') U2 (F B)
- E: doesn't look like the standard RUD alg
- T: R B U'B'U B U B²R'B U B U'B' is the standard alg but in the back
- V: F'U F'U'R'D R'D'R²F'R'F R F is related to modern alg but on different faces. L'U R U'L U L'U R'U'L U²R U²R' can be turned into RUD alg
- F: none are standard T-perm based alg.
- Rb: idk enough to talk about these
- Jb: more move efficient but not as good
- Y: none look like standard Y-perm
- Ga?: idk
- Nb: idk either