Solve a Rubik's cube of any size - it's as easy as n~2/log n

摘要

It may be cold comfort to those struggling with one, but a new algorithm helps calculate the maximum number of moves needed to solve a mixed-up Rubik's cube of any size. Rubik's cube science got a boost last year when a team led by programmer Tomas Rokicki of Palo Alto. California, showed that even the most scrambled standard Rubik's cube can be solved in 20 moves or less. They used a "brute force" method to check all 43 quintillion possible solutions for the 3x3x3 cube, but doing the same for larger cubes - with side-lengths of n squares - would be impossible.