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Solving puzzle: how is this possible?

xaviescacs

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mmmmm what about showing the number of permutations needed to solve it from the initial state and report the average time per movement as the velocity metric? Otherwise, I don't get how they compare overall times from random initial states. Perhaps I'm missing something...
 

solderdude

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Puts his fingers in position at counter 0.372 seconds.
He starts to rotate the left side at 0.600 seconds
Then at 0.732 seconds the 'puzzle' is magically solved (1/7th of a second = 132ms) even the right side which he did not turn.
Conclusion... magic exists or trickery.
 

HammerSandwich

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If it's an editing trick, why not show a properly scrambled cube up front? It's only a few turns from solved before he starts.
 

solderdude

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One may have to look at it frame by frame (can't seem to do that in YT) and looks like the frames I can see goes from 0.600 to 0.603 to 0.732.
 

Unground

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I believe this is a trick that has caused consternation in the speed-cubing community, as a trick would demean the skill and extensive commitment of the top cubers.

There is a very charming documentary on Netflix, The Speed Cubers or similar, which is well worth a watch. I found it a fascinating insight into what looks like a tight community of nice kids and supportive parents.
 

earlevel

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Eight consecutive frames (30 fps). Weird thing: the time doesn't increment for four frames (0.600), then four more (0.732, the fourth frame not shown), though the man to the right raises his hand to his nose smoothly during the latter frames, and all the subtle head movements look good.

Between frames four and five, the colors change abruptly—while he could have spun some on the vertical axis, there isn't a hint of it, and it seems unlikely that he could complete the rotation on the horizontal axis that complete the solution that smoothly. And his hand and finger movements are smoothly incremental from frame to frame—hard to believe if could have snapped things around between frames yet resumed that smooth motion for the remainder.

I'm not sure how this was done. But never rule out the crowd being in on it (I've experienced people ignoring the obvious because "there were people watching").

Screen Shot 2022-07-14 at 12.25.25 AM.jpg
 

Unground

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Actually I just watched the video above. Looks like he does three moves. It's a set up, done for...who knows what reason. He's pretending to study the cube, which is what the real cubers do (they need to learn dozens of pattern permutations, each associated with a solving algorithm).

See this
- this year's North American 3x3 cube championships, posted yesterday by a cubing store/channel. You can see the times they are getting, which are way more than 1.26 seconds. And of course you can see their hands move.
 

iamnotPaul

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It's really simple when you know the schemes :)
But speed is another question haha
 

MRC01

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I didn't know that cube solving was still a "thing". This brings back memories. Back in the early 80s when the cube was new and popular, me and my geeky friends learned to solve it. One of them could do it in about 90 seconds. The local news came to our school and found him during lunch. He handed them a cube, said "scramble it". They did so, handed it back and timed him. That gave him his 15 minutes of fame that evening.
 

earlevel

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Eight consecutive frames (30 fps). Weird thing: the time doesn't increment for four frames (0.600), then four more (0.732, the fourth frame not shown), though the man to the right raises his hand to his nose smoothly during the latter frames, and all the subtle head movements look good.

Between frames four and five, the colors change abruptly—while he could have spun some on the vertical axis, there isn't a hint of it, and it seems unlikely that he could complete the rotation on the horizontal axis that complete the solution that smoothly. And his hand and finger movements are smoothly incremental from frame to frame—hard to believe if could have snapped things around between frames yet resumed that smooth motion for the remainder.

I'm not sure how this was done. But never rule out the crowd being in on it (I've experienced people ignoring the obvious because "there were people watching").

View attachment 218235
I said "Between frames four and five", but then I added a frame to the front before attaching the image, to show the increment of the clock—so the change is between five and six.

Both hands move evenly from frame to frame, yet the cube changes dramatically in the 33 ms between frames. 'nuff said.
 

Ra1zel

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earlevel

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it's not edited. it's a setup because needs only 3 moves. the second move realy is too fast for the framerate.
I don't discount that (a little hard for me to reconcile, considering the incremental hand position changes between the frames, but I can't rule it out as a possibility).

Now, what about the timer not changing between frames? Here's the timer, apparently; not sure why someone would use a competition time piece with millisecond resolution that takes something like an eighth of a second to update.

TOURNAMENT DISPLAY PRO

Well, looking at other competitions, it does appear to be jerky with the updates, LOL, two or three frames often. (And I shouldn't say it's necessarily the diplay, could be the timer it attaches to).
 
Last edited:

Unground

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I don't discount that (a little hard for me to reconcile, considering the incremental hand position changes between the frames, but I can't rule it out as a possibility).

Now, what about the timer not changing between frames? Here's the timer, apparently; not sure why someone would use a competition time piece with millisecond resolution that takes something like an eighth of a second to update.

TOURNAMENT DISPLAY PRO
They've made it look like an official solve but it isn't. There are lots of cubing channels on YouTube and this isn't on any of them. They've ignored it because it's a spoof. Lots of comments in the YouTube video explaining what is happening.
 

earlevel

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They've made it look like an official solve but it isn't. There are lots of cubing channels on YouTube and this isn't on any of them. They've ignored it because it's a spoof. Lots of comments in the YouTube video explaining what is happening.
Yeah, I never had a doubt it was fake, but I do see the comments now about the specific scramble. Still, pretty clever of him to slip a move between frames without a hint of motion (j/k).

So many spoofs out there. I'm always surprised how the flying jetpacks (Zapata's flyboard air, Browning's Gravity Industries jet suit) are met with zero skepticism, despite glaring improbabilities and practical impossibilities. I mean really goof spoofs, with fake Guinness awards being presented, even what appears to be a legit TED talk.
 

dasdoing

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I don't discount that (a little hard for me to reconcile, considering the incremental hand position changes between the frames, but I can't rule it out as a possibility).

Now, what about the timer not changing between frames? Here's the timer, apparently; not sure why someone would use a competition time piece with millisecond resolution that takes something like an eighth of a second to update.

TOURNAMENT DISPLAY PRO

Well, looking at other competitions, it does appear to be jerky with the updates, LOL, two or three frames often. (And I shouldn't say it's necessarily the diplay, could be the timer it attaches to).

the siplay seams to be updating every 130ms-ish only. strange though since those records are so fast now.

by the way, you can easily see frame by frame directly in Youtube using "," and "." keys
 
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