meichenl
Regular
If the goal of being color-neutral is to save time by choosing an easy cross, I propose we test how much being color-neutral might help with the following 2-person game, played by two people who I assume always solve a white cross.
1) Both open up timing software, but only one person needs to generate scrambles.
2) Player A scrambles their cube and looks for the best cross. Let's say it's orange.
3) Player A tells player B that the best cross is on orange.
4) Player B reorients their solved cube, holding the white face where they would normally hold orange.
5) Player B scrambles their cube. Now that easy orange cross on A's cube is an easy white cross on B's cube. At this point, players A and B have both scrambled their cubes with the same scramble, but the colors are different.
6) Both players solve simultaneously, making a white cross on their cube. Note this mean's they're solving the scramble differently, because player B has an easy white cross, and player A has whatever cross came up.
7) They record their times and switch roles, so next time player B scrambles first and looks for the easy cross to tell player A.
8) Repeat this for 100 or 200 total solves. Then compare your odd-numbered and even-numbered solves. If being color-neutral makes a significant difference, we expect the average of the odds and evens to be different. You could also check to see what percentage of the time the person with the easy cross wins.
I haven't played this game with anyone yet, but hopefully I'll find someone to do it soon. My standard deviation is about 4s, so even if I did 200 total solves with someone, the standard deviation of my average would be 0.4s, meaning I would need to repeat the entire thing several times to be sure about a 1s signal. On the other hand, faster pairs of cubers could get better results in less time.
Even if we found a signal, it wouldn't necessarily mean that switching to color-neutrality would make you faster. The goal is to see how much you're helped by always getting the easiest cross on the cube, but we could then guess about color-neutrality by extrapolation.
One confounding factor could be that the extra inspection you get when identifying the easiest cross for your partner could affect your times when solving the normal, undoctored cross. Hopefully, this effect would be small. I think it would be because most cubers do not use their entire inspection time anyway, so extra inspection is evidently not particularly beneficial.
You could try to conduct this experiment solo as well, but I think it would be more cumbersome and less fun.
If you do have a willing cuber nearby, grab them, give this a shot, and let's hear the results.
1) Both open up timing software, but only one person needs to generate scrambles.
2) Player A scrambles their cube and looks for the best cross. Let's say it's orange.
3) Player A tells player B that the best cross is on orange.
4) Player B reorients their solved cube, holding the white face where they would normally hold orange.
5) Player B scrambles their cube. Now that easy orange cross on A's cube is an easy white cross on B's cube. At this point, players A and B have both scrambled their cubes with the same scramble, but the colors are different.
6) Both players solve simultaneously, making a white cross on their cube. Note this mean's they're solving the scramble differently, because player B has an easy white cross, and player A has whatever cross came up.
7) They record their times and switch roles, so next time player B scrambles first and looks for the easy cross to tell player A.
8) Repeat this for 100 or 200 total solves. Then compare your odd-numbered and even-numbered solves. If being color-neutral makes a significant difference, we expect the average of the odds and evens to be different. You could also check to see what percentage of the time the person with the easy cross wins.
I haven't played this game with anyone yet, but hopefully I'll find someone to do it soon. My standard deviation is about 4s, so even if I did 200 total solves with someone, the standard deviation of my average would be 0.4s, meaning I would need to repeat the entire thing several times to be sure about a 1s signal. On the other hand, faster pairs of cubers could get better results in less time.
Even if we found a signal, it wouldn't necessarily mean that switching to color-neutrality would make you faster. The goal is to see how much you're helped by always getting the easiest cross on the cube, but we could then guess about color-neutrality by extrapolation.
One confounding factor could be that the extra inspection you get when identifying the easiest cross for your partner could affect your times when solving the normal, undoctored cross. Hopefully, this effect would be small. I think it would be because most cubers do not use their entire inspection time anyway, so extra inspection is evidently not particularly beneficial.
You could try to conduct this experiment solo as well, but I think it would be more cumbersome and less fun.
If you do have a willing cuber nearby, grab them, give this a shot, and let's hear the results.
