man solves rubik's cube in 11.13 seconds
a 20-year-old california institute of technology student set a new world's record saturday for solving the popular rubik's cube puzzle(1), turning the tiled(2) brain-twister(3) from scrambled(4) to solved in 11.13 seconds.
leyan lo is part of caltech's rubik's cube club, a brainy clutch of students that hosted the competition at the exploratorium museum in san francisco. lo's record-setting time came early in the day, among his first five tries in the preliminary rounds(5).
the record-setting solve caught competitors and lo himself by surprise.
"it's kind of scary now that i set it, because i have two more (attempts) to go," lo said humbly(6) afterward. his time of 11.13 seconds broke the previous record of 11.75 seconds, set by frenchman jean pons at the dutch open competition last year.
still, the world record alone wouldn't gain lo the overall champion's title at the event, which is determined by averaging three of five solution times in the final round(7). for that title, lo went up against the teenager widely considered the fastest rubik's cube solver on the planet — shotaro "macky" makisumi, a 15-year-old high school sophomore(8) from pasadena.
makisumi prevailed(9), clocking in with an average time of 14.91 seconds in the final round to take first place.
besides blindingly fast fingers and a head for memorizing algorithms(10) used by most top competitors to solve the cube, what is makisumi's secret?
"i don't know. faster first two layers," he surmised, referring to solving the first two layers of the cube's colored tiles before moving on to the last. for his victory, makisumi won a rubik's snake puzzle, one of several variations on the basic cube model which has sold more than 100 million worldwide, according to the manufacturer.
contestants brought their own cubes to the competition, and a computer program was used to scramble the cubes in the same fashion(11) for each round to give the contestants equal footing(12).
周六，一位20岁加利福尼亚技术学会的学生以11.13秒的速度打破了破解鲁比克魔方的世界纪录。鲁比克魔方是一种砖形的益智玩具，需要玩家把打乱的魔方恢复原状。
莱炎·洛是加利福尼亚理工学院鲁比克魔方俱乐部的会员。这群好动脑筋的学生们在旧金山的探索博物馆举行了这次比赛。当天早上，洛的破纪录成绩就在预赛五轮中产生了。
不仅其他的参赛者，连洛本人都被这个成绩震惊了。
赛后，洛谦逊地说：“刚知道我破了纪录的时候有点害怕，因为我还有两轮没赛呢。”洛以11.13秒的成绩打破了去年法国吉恩·庞斯在荷兰公开赛上11.75秒的世界纪录。
但是，仅是世界纪录并不能让洛获得此次比赛的冠军，因为这次比赛的结果是由决赛中五轮比赛中三次最好成绩的平均成绩而定的。和洛争夺冠军的是来自帕萨迪那的15岁的高中二年级学生肖塔罗·马吉苏米，被认为是地球上破解魔方最快的人。
马吉苏米在决赛中以14.91的平均成绩大获全胜。
除了飞速转动的手指和顶级破解者对于运算法则的记忆力，马吉苏米还有什么秘密武器呢？
他说：“我不知道。尽快搞定上面两层。”他说要先破解上面两层彩色的砖块，然后再破解最下面的。马吉苏米得到的奖品是一根魔棍。魔棍是魔方的变种之一，制造商说全世界的魔方销售量已经达到一亿个。
参赛者自带魔方，每一轮由计算机按照同一方向统一打乱所有的魔方，以便比赛公平。