Interesting that the author of the article has a novel to sell called "The Genesis Secret", hmmm?
One of the posters at the original article said it well:
"Although a very important archaeological discovery, claiming it to be the mythical Garden of Eden is as likely as it being Supermans Fortress of Solitude."
I have a copy of Life magazine from the week that JFK was shot (the funeral is the cover story), and one of the ads is all about drinking Dr. Pepper hot.
Yeah, I hope they expand the database some. I was laughing pretty hard but it only took about 6 tries to come up with three parts that actually matched.
Also, this typical statement (probably from the advertising) has always been misleading:
"there are an astonishing 43 quintillion different possible configurations and only one solution."
That makes it sound like solving it is finding a very small needle in a very big haystack. The truth is that the same general set of moves will solve any scrambled cube. There are really only about 6 or 7 different moves you need (more if you want to be more efficient at it).
He did well - anyone who designs their own set of solutions to the cube has done something impressive, no matter how long it takes.
There are some simple general strategies that he could have learned without having the solution given to him, though. Fairly simple moves for solving the whole cube can be built up using the idea of conjugates (see http://www.ryanheise.com/cube/conjugates.html), if you use a standard notation and write down what you're doing as you go. The cube is not actually as difficult as most people think. It's only difficult if you try to solve it with no particular method.
I showed this to my girlfriend, who is Taiwanese, and asked her what it said. She read for a few seconds, and then said "Oh, my goodness..." and started laughing :)
One of the posters at the original article said it well:
"Although a very important archaeological discovery, claiming it to be the mythical Garden of Eden is as likely as it being Supermans Fortress of Solitude."
Spot remover.
"there are an astonishing 43 quintillion different possible configurations and only one solution."
That makes it sound like solving it is finding a very small needle in a very big haystack. The truth is that the same general set of moves will solve any scrambled cube. There are really only about 6 or 7 different moves you need (more if you want to be more efficient at it).
There are some simple general strategies that he could have learned without having the solution given to him, though. Fairly simple moves for solving the whole cube can be built up using the idea of conjugates (see http://www.ryanheise.com/cube/conjugates.html), if you use a standard notation and write down what you're doing as you go. The cube is not actually as difficult as most people think. It's only difficult if you try to solve it with no particular method.
http://www.chefelf.com/starwars/holiday_intro.php
http://james.nerdiphythesoul.com/bennyhillifier/?id=JFq2YJKYa-k