Philosophy - Future of Cubing

[jackolanternsoup]

When do you think the cubing world will stop progressing? eventually I'm sure there will be a point where no one actually can get any faster unless they get lucky cases. Maybe sometime when we reach 8 or 9 second averages...

But seriously.. What'll happen then? Will we be achieving the fastest times through seeing the reverse of a scramble in the 15second inspection time and end up getting 3-5 second algorithms to completely solve the cube (even less if you consider it as optimal 25 moves right?)? That would be so incredibly cool... haha. anyway, sounds crazy now I'm sure but I read somewhere that's what people said about Fridrich F2L... lol

anyway, this is a thread where many people should reply and show off how profound they are.. haha. Science fiction now, reality in the future... lol

And the aim of this is to guess the future of cubing or maybe even what the limitations will be. Not to de-bunk the cool idea stated above.. XD

 

[ShadenSmith]

I've questioned that a lot myself, and honestly I'm not sure. As far as seeing the reverse scramble, I'm sure it's possible to trace it back in your mind, however unlikely or difficult it is. Probably one of the largest difficulties in that would just be deciding where to start. Try looking at a properly scrambled cube and even trace back one or two moves (without knowing the scramble). You'll probably never get it right.

I think most realistically, we'll get down to the 8-9 sec average and reach the limit to cubing. Once advancement slows down (I don't think it will ever stop...there are always new methods and algorithms to create) the popularity of it will probably decline back into what it was a few years ago.

 

[jackolanternsoup]

aww... that'd be horrible... But that is probably what'd happen... Well hopefully some very brainy person will come up with a method of reverse-scrambling.. Maybe not optimal 25 moves... maybe even double that.. hmmm.. *fantasise*

 

[badmephisto]

i doubt a human could ever process a full solve in his mind - we simply lack the capacity. By application of some clever heuristics you can probably make it a tiny bit easier, but i doubt you can go full way. Not even a computer right now can solve an optimal rubik's cube in 15 seconds...
In my opinion there is most certainly a better method than the Fridrich method, im just not sure if it's been developed yet. Fridrich has this problem that it's always breaking up what it constructs.
When thinking of the Rubik's cube, it's pretty obvious that there seem to be two distinct subgroups to it composed of edges and corners. In my opinion a fastest method will be a corner edge method, at least theoretically. The only problem is that E/S/M slices for edges are not exactly the fastest thing for human fingers to execute; so with these extra limitations of human body imposed on the problem, i don't know
I'd place the limit on human average at around 8

 

[Jai]

Well, I believe a new method will emerge once we hit a definite human speed limit with Fridrich, and start looking elsewhere. I, for one, already have another OLL system under development. It's not necessarily as fast as Fridrich OLL, but it's a 1 look OLL, and it's possible for beginners to learn all 57 OLL cases in 2-3 days. Like I said, it's not always as fast as normal Fridrich OLL, but it just goes to show that there are other ways to solve that could make Fridrich obsolete soon.

The only problem is that E/S/M slices for edges are not exactly the fastest thing for human fingers to execute

A little hint as to what it is.
Harris, don't tell everyone what it is.

 

[jackolanternsoup]

well... I'm sure if the world had to do nothing but E/S/M slice moves, some new cool hybrid specialist cube would be made making it easier to perform.. Maybe even to the point of M' U M U' triggers being the new "in" thing.. haha

 

[abbracadiabra]

I think one of the problems with the arguments above is that we're basing the future of cubing on only one aspect: speed. While you can quantify and measure speed, it's not the only reason people solve puzzles, nor is it the only goal to be attained.

Good puzzles tend to carry on in perpetuity. You can still pick up a 15 puzzle today, and kids still boggle their brains trying to solve it. I expect that the Rubik's cube will continue to puzzle people as long as people continue to puzzle.

 

[badmephisto]

one more thing i was thinking is that it is very important in a solve is to be able to see your entire cube. This lead me to think that a very good idea is probably to construct a 2x2x2 block as in Petrus, and place it in BDL right from preinspection. That way you can't see it, but that's ok because you know its solved. That leaves you with complete freedom in R, U, F moves, which are the fastest, to finish up the entire cube. There certainly is still a lot that can be done to make Speedcubing faster

edit:
abbracadiabra: but this is a speedcubing forum speed is half of what we are about

 

[ShadenSmith]

hmmm....I like that idea badmephisto. I wonder if you could cut time using Petrus if you just angle the cube differently and put the 2x2x2 where you described it. Thoughts?

 

[Johannes91]

I wonder if you could cut time using Petrus if you just angle the cube differently and put the 2x2x2 where you described it.

I thought that's what Petrus cubers are doing already. DBL is the most logical place.

 

[Lucas Garron]

Anyone remember my PSC1?
It runs indefinitely, so I think it will pick up again. Since it allows indefinite inspection and preparation, this will set a lower limit on ultimate speed.

Anyhow, cubing is still young (I consider 2000 a convenient date for the start of modern cubing - makes for easy chronology).
Someday the WCA database will have 1000 competitions, and the 3x3x3 avg WR will be sub-10 (both pretty soon).
Eventually we'll be history (and have school essays written about the history of cubing). We'll probably start seeing obituaries on speedcubing.com
It's interesting to consider what cubers in 100 years will think about current results, regulations, and the online community.

And think of all the new puzzles!

EDIT:

When do you think the cubing world will stop progressing?

Never.

 

[Dene]

Anyone remember my PSC1?

Did anything more come of this other than a few posts?
Sounds like a good idea, but would take time, and people who now how to use complicated programmes that I couldn't understand .

As for my opinion of the future of speedcubing, I'm a little more optimistic. I see no reason why we couldn't manage sub-7 averages with the right method. I mean, imagine Mr. Chan with full ZB? If he could execute all of those algorithms in less than 2 seconds, you could cut 2 seconds of his current averages straight up... All it would take is an even better method (double x-cross with ELS+edge permutation and CLS+corner permutation) to get times much quicker. Of course there would be a lot of algorithms, but I think it's been proven that we humans have massive capacities in memory, I mean, look at Jason Baum?

 

[Mike Hughey]

Will we be achieving the fastest times through seeing the reverse of a scramble in the 15second inspection time and end up getting 3-5 second algorithms to completely solve the cube (even less if you consider it as optimal 25 moves right?)? That would be so incredibly cool... haha. anyway, sounds crazy now I'm sure but I read somewhere that's what people said about Fridrich F2L... lol

Has anyone ever noticed the comment attached to the top entry in this list?
http://www.speedcubing.com/records/recs_stats_fm.html

I must admit I find it pretty hard to believe; what do other people think? Does anyone out there know Tony Snyder? Apparently he's been around for quite a while - he has a record on the 3x3x3 single solve list of 12.5 seconds in 2002, which means he would have been outrageously world-record fast back then.

 

[Johannes91]

Does anyone out there know Tony Snyder?

http://twistypuzzles.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8429

 

[Mike Hughey]

Alrighty then. Time dilation, huh?

 

[Erik]

My $.02 on future cubing, not really spead-wise but more how the competitive cubing will be.
I forsee a much more professional-like cubing community in the future where people only have 1 even they are good at. Everyone has it's own strong and weak points and seeing that Matyas nowadays is almost the best at everything it seems highly unlikely that we are getting to any limit at all (speedwise). Personally, I see myself as someone with not too much talent but a lot of motivation and a good peak at what others do, getting much info about methods and styles and taking my conclusions for that. By only that I think I became as fast as I am now on puzzles like 5x5 and megaminx. On the 3x3 puzzle the skills are much more even already because everyone practises it and there it's not clear who is THE best at the moment. That's why I think that for puzzles like 5x5 and megaminx, 4x4, SQ-1, and especially Blindfolded the times in the future will be much faster than they are now.
Ok back to how the cubing will be competitively. There will (for I hope) many more cubers of the level of Yu Nakajima, Edouard Chambon etc. who take cubing almost as a professional sport. Maybe it will be broadcasted on telly with narrators slowmotions where the narrators will say things like: oh he missed an easy insertion there he must be mad at himself now for missing that wonderfull oportunity
I hope cubing as itself will be known as a sport like somethig like darts is nowadays with lots of sponsoring, higher prizes and still a very friendly atmosphere! That atmosphere is probably one of the best things I like so far about cubing, everyone respects one another and is interested in what method they use etc. lets hope that doesn't get lost in the future!
(wow this must be my longest post ever on this forum )

 

[MistArts]

People will start learning ZB's?

 

[Harris Chan]

In the future, may be there'll be 3-5 people that have the same single solve time, and the first rank vs tenth rank might only vary by 0.10 second! And that's when it becomes quite...competitive, and ultimately, based on luck. Possibly, more people with Tony Snyder's "ability" (like Yish?) will pop out, and cubing will just not be fair anymore -_-"

 

[blindfold cube]

This is my opinion. I think getting better times on a 3 by 3 will eventually get to the point where no one can get faster anymore. Guessing a random time, i will say we won't get much faster than 6 or 7 seconds. This is where i think bigger cubes will become more popular especially cubes bigger(OC) than a 5 by 5 because few people have such cubes. It will provide a new challenge for people to get world records on bigger cubes.

 

[Jai]

I think that, after a while, speedcubing will be more of an art than a sport , with so many different ways to solve. It won't be about how fast you can solve it, it'll be about how you solve it, like FM.