The Problem with Speed Cubing [video]
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Also, the video references feet solving. It was removed as an event at the start of 2020. Furthermore, they talk about Red Bull events as if they're another competitor to WCA events. Red Bull events are primarily designed to be broadcast to an audience. WCA events are designed so that everyone from young children to the elderly can compete. These two offbase points by the video creator make me think they aren't actually an active member of the speed solving community, just a random pedantic passerby.
For what it's worth, I think a no-inspection event would be an interesting addition to the competition, but the WCA probably doesn't like it because it would not be substantially distinguished from normal 3x3. I'll look into seeing if there are any discussions anywhere.
Edit: 3x3 No Inspection actually was an official WCA event from January 2006 to July 2006. Not sure why it was removed, though.
Here's my issue. The statement "the world record for solving a rubiks cube is 3.47 seconds" is false. It took him longer than 3.47 seconds, we just don't count the extra time because of the rules of the game (which is a great game by the way).
The format isn’t a pure test of manipulation skills or solving skills but a hybrid of both with much heavier weight on manipulation skills.
As an ex-cuber, I disagree that including inspection time would make the event more fair or would reduce the number of ties.
The reason there's so much variance in inspection time (usually over 8 seconds since that's when you get the warning from the timekeeper) is because nobody has previously cared about inspection time. If it started being included, people would spend far less time inspecting (maybe just looking for the first cross pieces at most) and you'd end up with similar competitive levels.
I'm also not sure I agree with the statement that they're "already solving the cube". It's not wrong but it gives the wrong impression -- given enough inspection time you couldn't solve the whole cube in your head using traditional methods like CFOP (obviously you do this in blindfolded solves but that's much slower than CFOP). Cross planning is a thing but I doubt that the variance in times is actually because Felix is slower than other cubers at doing cross planning -- he just takes his time because he knows inspection times are not counted.
That being said, I'm not against having it as a new format. It would be interesting to see how the meta would evolve (though I suspect it would just result in cross-only inspections, if that -- but it would be interesting if CFOP fell out of favour because there are better techniques that don't need as much inspection to get off to a running start). I also get the viewpoint that "it makes more sense" but I've also never had issues when solving cubes for laypeople when I say "hang on, lemme take a look before I start" so I'm not sure it's that big of a deal (not that many laypeople care about speedcubing minutiae anyway).
I also wonder whether this would disproportionately affect vision-impaired cubers (though I don't personally know any so I can't ask them if they typically have longer inspection times or if they're doing anything special during inspection).
I think it depends on whether you think the record ought to represent a chess-style intellectual feat or a physical dexterity feat.
In the inspection time they've clearly started the intellectual feat - just not the dexterity one.
My issue with saying "they're already solving the cube" is the implication that more inspection time would let you get even shorter solve times and I don't think that's the case (unless you went really ridiculous and gave everyone an hour to do a smallest-moves solve on paper).
(There are also practical issues with this kind of format that nsilvestri pointed out that I hadn't originally considered.)
I think it is one of the more interesting and underappreciated events, though it likely gets fewer entries due to the time commitment.
https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/#article-E-...
I agree, it would be interesting to see what techniques evolve. We can get some hint by looking at unofficial multicube records (most solves in 24 hours, most solves while holding breath underwater, etc). It would definitely wreck zz. Not sure which method would come out on top though. I've always been biased towards petrus so am enjoying coming up with reasons why that would potentially see a boost (although I doubt it would actually come out on top). I doubt we'd see many x-cross starts among CFOP solvers which I think is sad. I'm also wondering how this would effect color neutral solvers compared to solvers that stick to a specific color cross. I spent a month switching to be color neutral before my average times got back down to pre switch average.
I'm sure it would, but you could say the same thing for biathletes.
Competition is based on the details in the format, which competitors will optimise for.
Counter example from the examples given in the video. Olympic swimmers race, with heats and rules deciding who takes the less draggy centre lanes. But if we're truly looking for the fastest swimmers, we would conduct individual time trials in temperature controlled single lane pools at sea level, with times measured starting when the competitors' legs leave the diving board and when the competitors' fingers touch the wall at the end of the measured distance. Why should reaction time and inconsistent water drag count for the competition?
You see that in many other sports. Basketball has 3×3 championships, road cycling had the road race and the individual time trial, cricket has at least 3 different game formats (tests, one-day, and T20), soccer has indoor and outdoor forms, sailing has many different boat types, swimming has separate events for 25m and 50m pools and for open water swimming, etc.
4 if you include The Hundred[1] (although I don't think it's been exported out of England yet...)
- the 3x3x3 without inspection used to be an official WCA event but was removed as it was considered a worse way to fairly judge competitor's skill.
- it isn't the fault of speedcubers that people interpret WCA records as something they aren't and then claim it's lying when they find out what they actually are
And the whole analysis of who is fastest with inspection by looking at the data from solves with inspection is kind of meaningless.
Max park has solved 434 cubes in one hour solving cubes with an average 8.2s per cube inspection included. I guess you'll find a 5 seconds solve somewhere in the video.
The inspection phase is not really about "solving" the cube, but more about checking what is the best route to start solving the cube. In the most commonly used solving method that means that they are checking which color to create the initial cross to and what corners to place in first. If you take out the inspection phase, they will more or less just have to choose that at random, which will only cause more random variation to the final times which is already a huge problem with single solves.
Also comparing current record times by including the inspection time is absolutely useless, as the optimal way has been to use as much of the 15s you have to make sure that you are choosing the right approach and the time used for the inspection has no correlation to the time they have actually needed to inspect the cube.
E.g., for the CFOP method the second stage is pairing middle edge pieces with bottom corner pieces, and putting them in place. There are 4 of these middle edge pieces, so that stage has 4 steps. Each step may require from zero to ~8 moves.
Speed solvers typically scan the cube for the next step, and then while their fingers execute the moves they scan the cube, looking to setup the next step. Sometimes this allows them to anticipate the next _next_ step.
As an old fart who was a kid when the Rubik's Cube was introduced to America, I'd like these young whippersnappers to solve on the original Cubes, not these Ferrari cubes that never stick or get filled with hand salsa and backpack detritus.
The last layer doesn't really have any decision making though.
Such an argument ignores the fact that president X would likely have changed their strategy if the determinant for winning the election was changed to winning the popular vote
>Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of the people and often juxtapose this group against the elite.
They didn't and couldn't possibly know you will change the rules and judge them retroactively.
What if you try to count time to sit on chair next, should they preemptively start to sit really fast in competitions in case you decide in the future to change the rules?
The time they made were made with current rules, you cannot deduce absolutely anything from them. Maybe the fastest total guy is just really stressed and to be done with it. Maybe the slow total guy is just enjoying the show, maybe he's watching his friend doing his best time on next table. Or maybe he's checking if his camera is recording. It's just totally unfair and meaningless.
Also if you count inspection time, referee can now deliberately slowly reveal the cube to slow down someone's inspection.
Also, retroactively judging competitors based on a completely different objective does not make sense for determining world records. Maybe the current fastest solver would still be the fastest (inspection+solve)er, but they have had no incentive to demonstrate it so far.
I was quite annoyed watching the video, it felt unnecessarily long trying to back up this claim with unconvincing arguments.
Imagine how a no-inspection event would occur. A judge would remove the cover from the cube, and the timer would start simultaneously. Your solve would be partially dependent on how quickly the judge removes the cover, which is unacceptable in a race that can be decided by milliseconds. It would be like in a 100 meter race if a human whispered in your ear when you're allowed to start. Human variance should be avoided at all costs in a race that needs precision.
How many meters did Usain Bolt have to run in training before he ran his 100 meter record winning run.
How much of the time is a factor of the cubes randomisation, or the speed at which you pick up and drop the cube.
For the world's shortest river, how do you define river?
I think lay people would be surprised by the effectively arbitrary legal minutiae of most sports and competitions.
That's not really an accurate comparison. The current setup is more akin to a 100m running challenge where he was allowed to run 50m before starting the actual 100m to get up to speed.
The inspection time is not training, it's literally the time spent solving the cube.
The long jump is measured from the board, not from where you jump. Getting close to, but not over the edge is part of the arbitrary rules of the sport.
It looks like an interesting idea. The long jump competitions have something like that. Can someone organize it? Do you have to go slowly the first 40 meters and increase the speed just in the last 10 meters before the start line? Can the data from the 200m run be used to estimate this?
And it is absolutely the case that the times for world class second-100m of a 200m sprint are generally lower than even world record 100m sprints (in that report above, out of the field of 8, 6 runners beat the 100m world record over their second 100m)
Usain Bolt's world record 100m from a stationary start is 9.58s. His world record 200m splits were 9.92s and 9.27s.
Over the middle 100m, his time was 8.84s.
(see https://speedendurance.com/2009/08/21/usain-bolt-200-meter-s...)
So yes, a flying start makes a massive difference. 200m runners are generally slowing down in their second half (Bolt's last 50m took 4.75s, while he covered 100-150m in 4.52s, and 50-100m in 4.32s), but their average speed over the final 100m is still faster than a 100m runner. In a 100m sprint the runner may still be accelerating by the time they reach the line.
However, the better a solver gets, the more they are able to manifest lucky situations. For example, I do most of my solves oriented around the white side. If there's something lucky in the initial state that would make using the blue side better, I still might opt to not take advantage of it, because the downside of reorienting myself to the blue side is greater than the advantage from that lucky situation. However, someone who has practiced their recognition on all sides and is color-neutral might be able to take advantage of that situation in a way I could not.
Even if you don't get a skip, some OLLs and PLLs are faster than others. A "u perm" is way better than a "g perm" for PLL. In the OLL step a sune is really fast.
It says it has to be more than 1 move away from being solved.
>I kind of wonder why they'd have it at such a low number.
I don't know why it's 2 either as you might as well make it 1. They accept that the chance of such a short scramble coming up is too small to happen.
Secondly, sometimes the combination of the scramble and your early path through the solve creates future opportunities. Sometimes you’re lucky that a later step in the solve can be skipped. With a 10-second inspection time, no one can look this far ahead. With a world record hovering around 3 second, skipping one step that requires a 5-10 moves is a big deal.
The world record for the 2x2 is currently an eye-watering 0.49 seconds. 2x2 solvers use inspection time to plan the entire solve, something not possible with 3x3 and above. So that record 2x2 scramble was solvable in under a dozen moves; that’s good luck.
There are 3 obvious choices on how to deal with inspection time: none, some, and lots. The current and most popular event is in the some category. It's enough time that competitors can plan out a not insignificant portion of the solve, but by no means all of it. Competitors can gain an advantage by training to maximise the use of inspection time which in some ways adds to the event, but can also be seen as unrepresentative of the true solve time.
No inspection time would make for an interesting event but I don't think it would replace the event with some inspection time. They are different events with different but overlapping skill sets that the video doesn't really discuss. Instead it attempts to reach a conclusion by timing a phase that the competitors are using with the knowledge that the time doesn't matter.
Lots of inspection time, represented by the fewest moves event is an interesting but underappreciated event in my opinion. It takes out the physical aspect of how fast a competitor can turn faces, instead competitors have 1 hour to find the shortest sequence of moves to solve the same scramble. Drawbacks are the long amount of time per attempt compared to the usual speed events, and the lower resolution to differentiate competitors.
0: https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/#article-E-...
While I agree its worth changing the competition approach to count inspection time into the overall result, the fact that inspection time DOESN'T count in addition to solve time taints the results in the data. We don't know how any of the top 100 would have performed if they knew inspection time counted towards their overall record time.
It was, but it was extremely enhanced by the background drum track being keyed to visual changes in the data. That really emphasizes focus on the key data points.
Reminds me of old road racing, where they probably went a bit too far, when the start went, the drivers had to run onto the track, and start their motorcycles and go! None of this sitting there with the engine turned on and waiting for the lights.. :P
What the video is doing is equivalent to going back to prior Olympic events and then including the time taken by participants to walk out to the starting positions and get into the starting position if appropriate. Then reordering the participants based on those new times. Similar for the other records, like typing I’m sure retiming including setup and sitting down time would impact positions as well.
So I do agree with the basic idea that the prep time here should be included, but I don’t think you can ever reorder existing record holders - they would have to remain in a second category, which is also interesting in its own right as a measurement of pure mechanics.
There are logistical problems though. Keeping people from seeing the mix before it's their turn to solve becomes essential. Or you could go with just giving each competitor a unique mix.
As a layperson, I think new category would be interesting, because they would require different approaches. It reminds me of that Tetris post on HN the other day where teenagers innovated new techniques of manipulating the controller to defeat the old guard, or speedrunners coming up with new techniques.
Also I'm curious as to why people don't use all the inspection time in something that's so competitively min-maxed. Spending more time to reduce one or two moves seems like something that could make or break it when you get ties measuring to 0.01s
No, but that would be true in the reverse situation if we were going the other way and no longer counting inspection since it adds the ability for new strategies and tricks to be integrated. By counting the inspection time the event devolves into just immediately doing what you see first and makes some strategies unviable.
>Also I'm curious as to why people don't use all the inspection time in something that's so competitively min-maxed
As the other reply mentioned the more moves you plan the harder it is to know the current state of the cube at the end of what you planned. There's also a difference between knowing the general position a piece will be in and knowing the exact position and orientation of pieces which is necessary for adding more moves for your plan.
On the second point, it seems like there is more room to push the skill ceiling. Being more precise than general would give those cubers an edge in No inspection. I suppose this is like chess or poker where permutations of moves or hands are impossible to memorise for.
There is not an interesting trade off. You just look to see if there's an obvious good start. Even with 15s of inspection you are usually only planning like 10% of the solve. The majority of the solve is already figured out on the fly.
>On the second point, it seems like there is more room to push the skill ceiling.
Yes, being able to accurately and quickly track pieces under time pressure is a skill.
What makes me curious is the variance in how the cubes are initially scrambled. Surely some cubes are easier to solve than others? So I have to believe there’s an intersection between skill AND luck of the draw?
As a tournament watcher, these things go so fast, there’s no real build for the spectator either.
Why don’t they do “here’s a paper bag with 10 scrambled cubes—solve em all!” This would reduce the outset variance and allow for some excitement to build in the room. At the rate these guys go, it would still be over in 2 minutes.
Those looking for a slower pace could still watch a chess tournament if need be.
I haven't verified myself, but I do think there is checking involved for some of the events (at least 3x3, 2x2, skewb, square-1, and pyraminx) to make sure the puzzles hit the minimum move limit. Other events like 5x5+ just use a sufficient number of random moves, because it would take too long to find and verify optimal solutions.
I can say in practice that the 2 move limit for 3x3 isn't a problem. I work on some personal projects related to cubing and was exploring the database [1] which has many historical scrambles. The shortest scramble ever generated was 12 moves long [2], and, from what I could tell from an extended inspection, is only "kind of" lucky. It's possible that some other simpler solves exist in the database but I haven't set my computer to crunch out the optimal solutions just yet.
I'm not particularly worried about really-short scrambles being randomly generated; my back of the envelope calculations suggest 3x3 scrambles of 8 moves or less as being one in 3.6 billion, while ~310,000 have been generated since 2014 and I estimate a seventh of them are never used (extra scrambles generated for a round if something goes wrong like the timer malfunctioning, the judge not following protocol, etc.).
[0] https://github.com/thewca/tnoodle
[1] https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/misc/export.htm...
[2] https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/competitions/SofiaAutum...
I remember on some mailing list we wrote program that calculated time for any algorithm using some heuristics how long would it take average speedcuber to perform specific sequences of moves. Then we would publish one scramble and everyone tried to find solution that should take shortest time. We just excluded physical aspect of speedcubing.
I also remember “3x3 fewest moves” but you can’t move the cube. We just did inspection and wrote solution on paper. In regular “fewest moves” you get scramble and can play with multiple cubes.
Given 1 hour and the scramble, work out the fewest sequence of moves to solve. Competitors are allowed to use up to 3 cubes, pen, paper, stickers etc to come up with their solution.
It's an underappreciated event in my opinion, but 1 hour is also a long amount of time, which also scales time to practice.
0: https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/#article-E-...
Any ideas where else I could promote this video? This site was suggested to me by a friend and it was perfect. Thank you again.
When we race for 100m stride, everyone has the same initial conditions. Same starting line.
What are the probabilities of getting an easier scramble than a difficult one?
Altitude can affect world records for running (less air resistance, but also less air to breathe)
Regardless, it is interesting to inquire what is the distribution of probabilities and how far wide is the spread between the worst scramble and the best scramble (perfect cube which would be not very likely). It can be easily accounted for by providing each player the same random scramble of cubes. Far easier than controlling altitude of each sporting venue for running.