January 29, 2011 05.46pm EST

Puzzle-maker Unveils World's Largest Rubik's Cube

By David Murphy

• 0 Comments
• 0diggsdigg

Oskar van Deventer, a Dutch puzzle designer, has succeeded in his quest to create one of the largest and most complex puzzles known to humankind, and he has a three-dimensional printer to thank for helping him to orchestrate the feat.

We're talking, of course, about the world's largest Rubik's Cube—that's an unofficial title as of right now, but it's difficult to envision one that's larger than Deventer's. Measuring in at 17-by-17-by-17 tiles, or nearly half-a-foot across, the cube took Deventer more than 60 hours of manufacturing (as well as three separate prototypes) to construct. Just dying the 1,539 pieces that make up his cube, entitled "Over the Top," took the puzzle-maker ten hours.

We won't even ask as to how much time it might take an enthusiast to solve the thing—perhaps as much time as it might take one to save up to purchase the puzzle, which ranges from around $1,800 to $2,000 over at Shapeways. However, since the company does custom-print the puzzles itself on a 3D printer, one can at least personalize the look and material of "Over the Top."

Deventer plans to officially unveil his creation at the New York Puzzle Party Symposium on February 12. He'll also craft up a YouTube video of the event, though no speed runs through the monstrous cube are likely to be a part of the footage.

Researchers—including a Google engineer—released the results of their search for "God's Number" last year, or the informal name given to the highest amount of moves it could theoretically take one to solve a Rubik's cube from any possible starting permutation. The number has been slowly trickling down from 52 since 1981, and it now rests at 20 maximum moves.

We mention the Google engineer bit, as the research team harnessed the power of Google's data farms—specifically, 35 CPU years' worth of processing power—to calculate out the solution to every potential Rubik's Cube position, 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 in all. This number was broken down into a mere 55,882,296 sets of positioning problems by using symmetry and other qualifiers to reduce the number of actual computations needed.

Deventer has yet to release the details of how many potential moves could make up a 17-by-17-by-17 cube.


- wong chee tat :)