Alright, this guy's a professional, he's spinning those cubes like it's his job, barely breaking a sweat. I can see how he'd be taking it all in his stride like a real cool guy, but then he breaks a world record - a world freaking record - and he's still chill as hell. They don't teach that kind of composure in Speed Cubing class.
This is Bhargav Narasimhan, getting his name in the Guinness Book of Records last weekend by solving five Rubik's Cubes in 1.23.934 minutes… with one hand. "The previous record was set by Yumu Tabuchi, which was 1.52 minutes. My record is 1.23.934 minutes," he told the press. "I feel very happy that I have done it for the nation."
Along with his new world record, Narasimhan also holds more than 40 national records and two Asian records, thanks to his single-handed speed-cubing prowess. The world record for the fastest single one-handed cube is held by Antoine Cantin from Canada, who clocked 8.75 seconds late last year.
Meanwhile, back in January, Kenneth Brandon from the US showed us what it looks like to navigate the 66.9 quinquagintatrecentillion different possible positions of his 17 by 17 by 17 Rubik's Cube. That's 6.69 x 101054, and if you had to write it out in zeroes, you'd have more than a thousand of them. It took 7.5 hours. On the other end of the scale, last year a smartphone-powered robot named CUBESTORMER 3 beat the non-human record for solving a regular Rubik's Cube - 3.253 seconds.
Robert Sorokanich explains how you engineer a robot to solve a Rubik's Cube over at Gizmodo:
"The smartphone brain analyses the cube's starting arrangement, then instructs four robot arms to carry out each step needed to get the cube to its solved state. Since the robot uses a speed cube, which allows twisting moves even when the sides aren't perfectly aligned, the robot hands must be amazingly precise to move so smoothly and quickly."
Here it is in action: