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What's the Monkey number of the Rubik's cube?

The "Monkey number" is the average number of twists it takes to solve a Rubik's cube starting from a randomly chosen scrambled position and by making random twists. It's pretty obvious that this number will be gigantic but nobody knows the exact value of this number nor even how gigantic a number we are talking about. So what are the Monkey numbers for the 3x3x3 or the 2x2x2? How do you create a mathematically certified random scramble of a Rubik's cube? And how would a virtual Monkey solver fare in an actual speedcubing competition? Accompany me the Mathologer, my friend Erich Tomanek and our pet monkey as we explore these and other confounding Rubik's cube puzzles.

English
  • Originally Aired June 10, 2018
  • Runtime 11 minutes
  • Network YouTube
  • Created July 8, 2018 by
    Administrator admin
  • Modified July 8, 2018 by
    Administrator admin