4 ms·
Why is it "God's"?..
by crypto5 10y ago
Why is it "God's"?..
- lgas 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God's_algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God's_algorithm
- wincy 10y agoThere's a link in the article to Wikipedia. Basically that an omniscient being would know the shortest number of moves on a Rubik's cube, so the most number of moves "God" would take to solve a Rubik's cube would be 20. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/God's_algorithm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/God's_algorithm
- schoen 10y agoIt's named for the idea of "God's algorithm", which is a perfect optimal solution to a puzzle like the Rubik's cube from any position. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God%27s_algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God%27s_algorithm The idea of this is that an omniscient being would know the best possible move in any configuration, and therefore might solve the puzzle in a strikingly more efficient way than an ordinary solver. I don't know who originated the term but, if I remember correctly, it already appeared in Douglas Hofstadter's discussion of the Rubik's cube in the 1980s, so it was already current then. It was a big topic of Rubik's cube research until it was definitely solved (by the people whose work is linked above).
- crypto5 10y agoThank you. Nit: It seems like Rubik's God's number would be better naming, because other puzzles would have different God's numbers..
- schoen 10y agoTrue! I guess in this case the Rubik's cube enthusiasts first coined the term, and the question was most discussed and studied in that community, so for them the intended reference was still clear even though the concept had also been applied to other puzzles.
- manojlds 10y agoRead the article first.