Rubik's Cube

On Fox News This morning I saw 3 (young) people solve the Rubik's cube: one person was blindfolded, another kid (with a π T-shirt) uses just 1 hand, and another kid with both hands.
Whoa. the blindfolded guy did it, in less than 1 minute! But the other kids are very close to solving it. Amazing.

The Rubik's Cube was a phenomenon in the 80s. It is simple and colorful and tough to solve. I have never able to solve it. The only way I can do this is to rip apart the cube and put it back together.

The cube is frustrating because I can't use divide-and-conquer. If I try to solve one side I will mess up another side, or mess up the current side. However, if I study the solutions and try a few times, perhaps I can eventually solve it. I just needed the time and patience to do this.

So the TV anchor asked the champion: what's your secret? He says: look for the hundreds of entries with google for solutions, and a LOT of practice...

Some would do DIFFICULT things for fame and honor, like figure skating. Some may do it for a living! Like training to perform in circus.

But one may ask, but why spend time on solving the Rubik's Cube?

Well it is a challenge. Sometimes we attempt difficult things even there is no reward (other than the YEAH! I DID IT),like someone would train really hard to climb a mountain. With training and the will, some people can do amazing things.

Life perhaps just need some goals to achieve. So I won't say the Rubik players are wasting their time. Go ahead, do what you think is fun, as long as don't hurt others.

The kid who attempted to use 1 hand to solve Rubik's cube was wearing a T-shirt with digits of π. Although I am not seeing the connection of Rubik's cube and π or any math, I LIKE that T-shirt. I also would like to have a fractal tie... A t-shirt with Maxwell's equations or Euler's formula! Ok I just have a line of business in mind: Mathgears. Ok here is a math question: how many customers would I have?