Category Archives: Puzzles

New Rubik’s Speed-Solving Record: Blink and You’ll Miss It!

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Clever, quick-fingered solvers are constantly pushing the boundaries of what can be accomplished with a Rubik’s Cube.

I’ve seen the world’s most complex Rubik’s-style cube being solved, a building turned into a solvable Rubik’s Cube, and a Rubik’s Cube solved one move at a time by strangers across the globe.

I’ve even seen a Rubik’s Cube solved during a skydive.

But, amidst all those amazing achievements, there has been something lurking in the background. Over the years, there has been an escalating cold war in the world of Rubik’s Cubes.

The two sides? Human and machine.

The battlefield? Speed-solving.

Human speed-solvers often count their records in seconds, not minutes. The current record for a 3×3 cube solve is 3.05 seconds!

But speed-solving devices are often so fast that they end up ripping the cube to pieces instead of completing the solve. So puzzly designers must carefully walk a tightrope between speed and power in order to challenge speed records for mechanical solvers.

The record for an automated solve is an astonishing 0.305 seconds – ten times faster than the fastest human solve! — set by Mitsubishi Electric engineers in Japan in May 2024.

Or it was, until a few days ago.

The new Guinness World Record for “Fastest robot to solve a puzzle cube” belongs to Purdubik’s Cube, the robot created by Junpei Ota, Aden Hurd, Matthew Patrohay, and Alex Berta, a team of students from Purdue University’s Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The new record? 0.103 seconds.

It’s hard to fathom how quick that is. Thankfully, one of Purdubik’s Cube’s creators has an apt analogy:

“We solve in 103 milliseconds,” Patrohay said. “A human blink takes about 200 to 300 milliseconds. So, before you even realize it’s moving, we’ve solved it.”

Utilizing a combination of color recognition and finely-tuned industrial-grade motion-control hardware — guided by algorithms written by the students themselves — Purdubik’s Cube carefully accelerates and decelerates its movements faster than the eye can see.

And despite the fact that a team of four college students smashed a record previously held by a billion-dollar corporation, they’re not done yet.

They aspire to solve a Rubik’s Cube with Purdubik’s Cube in less than a tenth of a second! I don’t know how they expect to shave a few milliseconds off their time to achieve their goal, but you know what? I fully believe they can do it. In less than a year, they set their goal of a new Guinness World Record and achieved it.

Who knows what they’ll achieve next?

[You can read the full story of their journey from the initial goal to their world record success on the Purdue Engineering website. I highly recommend it!]

A Secret Egyptian Code Hiding in Plain Sight?

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Thirty-three hundred years ago, an obelisk was carved in ancient Egypt. It stood at the entrance of the Luxor temple as part of a pair.

Almost two hundred years ago, the obelisk was given to France by Egypt’s ruler. It stands at the Place de la Concorde in Paris, thousands of miles from its sibling in Egypt.

Two centuries of students and tourists and philosophers and photographers and scholars gazing at the obelisk, reading the intricately carved hieroglyphs.

Hieroglyphs were traditionally written in columns reading downward. But there are also left and right directional markers, marking the beginning of a sentence, often indicated by which direction a human or animal figure is facing.

As you can see, the placement of different symbols allows them to combine with others, both vertically and horizontally, to create different words or concepts.

And whomever did the inscriptions on the obelisk used the multidirectionality of the language to conceal messages in plain sight.

Even after centuries of study, it took a keen eye and some lucky conditions for Egyptologist Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier to uncover the hidden messages.

You see, the obelisk was surrounded by scaffolding as part of its renovations, and this allowed Olette-Pelletier to get up close to the highest point of the obelisk and observe the inscriptions rarely seen by casual observers.

The hidden messages required him to read the hieroglyphs horizontally rather than vertically, and at a particular angle as well. This three-dimensional study of the inscriptions, known as crypto-hieroglyphs, allowed the creator to conceal messages that didn’t simply sing the praises of Pharaoh Ramses II, but actually point to his rulership as divine right, claiming his power came directly from the gods themselves.

It was propaganda, intended to reinforce the pharaoh’s status in the eyes of the elites of Egypt, cloaked in messages for the common people. (One of the messages, for instance, could only be seen by those arriving by boat, a privilege available only to the elite.)

For example, from an article in EuroWeekly News:

“People had not noticed that under [one of the drawings] of the god Amun, there is an offering table. This allows us to discover a sentence where no element is missing: an offering that the king gives to the god Amun,” Olette-Pelletier told BFMTV. Combinations of the newly identified inscriptions produce additional meanings in what’s called three-dimensional cryptography. In total, the Egyptologist identified seven encrypted messages across the obelisk’s various facades. He explained that the enigmatic text can only be understood by walking around the monument.

Imagine the creator of the obelisk, carving with specific angles and readers in mind, an iconic gift to the pharaoh… only for the code to be cracked thousands of miles away, thousands of years in the future, by a different kind of elite.

The puzzly kind.

That’s amazing.

Optical Illusions Made of Wood!

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Learning about the science behind optical illusions has been one of my favorite parts of this job. More and more, scientists are figuring out WHY optical illusions work on us, utilizing combinations of color, shadow, perspective, and how we process information to create impossible images, illusions of movement, and visual wonders to challenge how we interpret the world.

And I love seeing how people have responded by pushing the boundaries of what we can do with optical illusions. Earlier this year, I wrote about the glitch quilt, a fascinating and eye-wobbling work of brain-melting color play and meticulous execution.

In a world increasingly reliant on computer assistance and push-button AI-fueled shortcuts, there’s something both comforting and immensely charming about glitch quilts being handmade.

So it should come as no surprise to you, fellow puzzler, that I was overjoyed to discover another example of handmade optical illusion crafting… this time, made of wood.

This is the end grain optical illusion cutting board. It appears to bend and swirl and warp as you stare at it, despite being made of straight lines and alternating colors.

Although I discovered it through Obsessed Woodworking, this particular piece is the handiwork of Ryan Hawkins, who has a woodworking YouTube channel where he detailed the elaborate step-by-step process involved in creating this sturdy perspective-twisting delight:

Ryan, to his credit, pointed to another woodworking content creator who supplied the design plans for the cutting board: mtmwood.

mtmwood has numerous examples of handcrafted visual tricky, employing tessellations and tricks of perspective to fool the eye into following intricately laid patterns, and my favorite is easily one that they call the butterfly board:

Employing a similar technique to the optical illusion cutting board, but managing to shape four twisting patterns, is truly impressive and a testament to the hard work, skill, and technique required to bring these stunning pieces to life.

And, as you might expect, this sent me down a YouTube rabbit hole looking for other wooden optical illusions, and there are plenty to choose from.

This is a nicely executed attempt at showing dimension and depth to get us started.

Whereas this one walks us through all the stages of preparing to take a familiar optical illusion from a drawing to a three-dimension form:

I confess, I watched this next one three times in a row, trying to spot the seams:

I could go on and on, but honestly, instead of closing out on the illusions, I’d like to end this celebration of creativity and artisanship with a simple photo showing the preparation and painstaking work it takes to bring these pieces to life.

This is the optical illusion cutting board in its embryonic stage, a lineup of different pieces and thicknesses of wood. All marked and cut with precision, waiting for the next step in assembly. I stare at this picture, and consider every mark, every cut, every spin of the table saw’s blade as the creator runs piece after piece after piece through those whirling metal teeth, each of them perfect and crisp.

It’s a remarkable thing to ponder, and a joy to watch in both progress and in final realization. I’m glad I could share that with you today.

Happy puzzling, everyone!

A Puzzle Party for Reproductive Justice!

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There’s a long history of activism and advocacy through puzzles. Women of Letters, Grids for Good, Queer Qrosswords, These Puzzles Fund Abortion… these are just a few prominent examples of constructors and creators donating their time and puzzly efforts to benefit the world at large.

And the wonderful team at Frontera Fund are using puzzles to help raise awareness next Thursday, May 8th with their Puzzle Party event!

Cactus Valley Art in Harlingen, Texas, will be hosting the event.

There will be puzzles, community support, and discussions of the modern abortion access landscape and the challenges involved in ensuring that women and those assigned-female-at-birth have the support and resources they need.

This is a wonderful way to help get the word out. I hope that you’ll participate in the event, either by attending in person, by following through social media, or by donating to the cause!

I’d also like to take the opportunity to shout out These Puzzles Fund Abortion 5 . This year marks the fifth edition of the project, collecting 23 puzzles centered around social and reproductive justice themes, all for a minimum donation of $25.

If you donate $50 or more, you will also receive the puzzle packs for the previous four years of TPFA.

Whether you support Frontera Fund or the five important charities involved in These Puzzles Fund Abortion, I thank you for your time, your donations, and your participation in helping protect and provide healthcare for others.

Together, puzzlers can change the world.

A Rhyming Puzzle For You!

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One of my favorite memes is “You’ve heard of Elf on a Shelf, now…”

Inspired by the family-friendly surveillance toy that took the world by storm, this meme (which dates back to 2016!) gives you the format of “elf on a shelf” and sets you up with a little visual puzzle to solve.

The image above, for instance, gives you Shrek on a deck!

Image courtesy of Joe-_-King on Reddit.

And this one gives us Grogu on a snowshoe!

Now, my Photoshop skills are pretty much nonexistent, but my cluing skills are fairly sharp, so I’ve opted to create a bunch of clues for you.

All you have to do is come up with an “elf on a shelf”-style rhyme that fits the clue.

Ready? Here we go!

Grumpy person on a sofa

Golf helper in a rice field

Magical boy atop an aquatic mammal

Tucker or Turner on an award

Female scientist on a panel

Mythical creature on a pitcher

Alcoholic drink poured over Mr. Morris or Mr. Levi

Public defender on an excursion

Chewy candy at a steak/lobster restaurant

Food storage atop a crane

Ruse involving a pastry store

Greater attention to detail regarding a coup asea

Prodigious author atop a candy egg

Infectious agent atop an old thin writing surface

Distress call regarding a check

Building material atop a musician or a whale

Camel located in cafeteria

Ball of air atop a device in space

Plants growing on industrial devices

Guide to freedom atop a horse-drawn ride

A Gibb brother on a cleaning device

Famed magician atop a sandwich

Autocratic rule in the Iberian peninsula

Arthropod atop a city transport terminal

Sports official atop an ape

These last few are a little tougher, good luck!

French poet using federal health insurance

Correction for a stitch

My French brother atop ceramics

“The Wolf of Wall Street” star in Arab city

Old-fashioned person in a gory home office

How many did you get? Did any stump you? Let me know in the comments below!

Anagram Cluing: Hiding in Plain Sight!

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I’ve got anagrams on the brain today.

The Puzzmo mini crossword is always accompanied by notes from the constructor and the editor. The comments from yesterday’s puzzle centered around anagrams, since the mini had not only an anagram in the theme entries — MAORI and MARIO — but actually had the word ANAGRAMMED crossing those entries.

In those comments, both Will Eisenberg and Brooke Husic discussed a really playful subset of cluing involving misdirection.

You give the solver an anagram, but present it is as a statement, rather than just saying “ABLE, to BALE.” When done properly, it takes a second for your brain to actually register the anagram, even though it’s right in front of you!

Will used the example “Ancients, for instance,” which cleverly employs the standard crossword trope of “for example / for instance / for one / e.g.” to conceal the anagram. Brooke had another banger example, offering “Anemone, to name one.”

I delved into the archives on Xwordinfo to look for other examples of this misdirection cluing style, and I found some fun ones. (Obviously, ANAGRAM isn’t an incredibly common entry, but I was genuinely surprised by the variety of options that awaited me in the archives.)

Back in 2011, Oliver Hill and Eliza Bagg gave us “Neo, for one,” which is such an effective misdirect than I can imagine writing the wrong answer more than once in the grid before realizing the trick, since this sort of clue is used so often for things like HERO or ROLE.

Other constructors phrased their anagrams as if they were slang or specialized jargon, leading solvers down the garden path while showing off their own impressive anagramming talents.

  • Ryan McCarty and Nelson Hardy gave us “Schoolmaster for the classroom, e.g.”
  • Margaret Saine offered “Illustration for an ill tourist?”
  • Sam Trabucco crafted “Nerd’s epithet for the president?”
  • Bryant White presented “Coasters for Socrates, e.g.”

Naturally, cryptic crossword or British-style crossword solvers probably suss out these clues faster, since this sort of stealthy wordplay is standard in cryptic cluing, where clues are written out like sentences, rather than the more direct cluing typically used in American crosswords. (Cryptic crossword icons Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon had one ANAGRAM clue in the Xwordinfo archives, the elegant “Broadcast of bad actors, e.g.”

Some constructors take it even further, employing the age-old trick of apropos anagrams for celebrities.

The Simpsons helped popularize knowledge of this game when Lisa learned that ALEC GUINNESS anagrams into GENUINE CLASS. Another famous one is CLINT EASTWOOD anagramming to OLD WEST ACTION. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE aptly anagrams to FLIT ON, CHEERING ANGEL.

Patrick Merrell employed this nicely with his clue for ANAGRAM, “Horrid glances from Charles Grodin?”

I could go on and on listing examples, but Patrick’s clue is hard to top.

I’m obviously a huge fan of misdirection clues, so it was a joy to deep-dive into a different genre of cluing and watch clever people work their magic. Hopefully you enjoyed taking this puzzly stroll with me.

Happy puzzling, everyone!