New Rubiks Cube

Yesterday I went for the movie Hancock and I was only able to get the tickets for the evening show, We were there in afternoon itself. So we went to nearby Crosswords nearby

Then I saw, they were selling rubik’s cube. It has been a long time since I touched it. So I bought myself a Rubik’s Cube (Original from Rubiks.com, my first one) and It cost me around Rs 225.

Also few must be knowing that around 2 weeks back Rubik’s Cube was celebrating its 25th anniversary.
Check out some cool ads for Rubik cube.

25 years and still going

25 years and still going

Today, I also found some creative ads related to Rubik’s cube via Toxel.com

So I have the new cube now, which is much better (smoother) compared to ones i previously had. I hope to improve upon my timing now.

And about the movie, Hancock, it wasn’t worth the hype created. though Will Smith rocked as always.

happy cubing !!

Also check: Rubik Cube Timer, My Rubik Page

July 14, 2008 | Filed Under puzzle | 1 Comment

Puzzle puzzle every where

Past few weeks have been puzzle/problem solving weeks, which includes 4 google treasure hunt problems. (Robot in a Maze, Puzzle 2 (getting lines from specific files in zip archive), Network routing table and last one:Prime numbers ). Solving these was fun.
puzzle
Two days back my friend shared this (Galton’s Paradox) on Google reader (My Google reader shared Items). Try explaining it not that difficult though.

But what drew my attention again? Yesterday I was watching 21 movie, Its based on real story of six MIT students cashed in millions in Vegas Casinos by counting cards. Here comes the puzzle, In a classroom scene Prof Micky asks one of the student (Jim, our hero)

Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what’s behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, “Do you want to pick door No. 2?” Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

I’m sure you will be left puzzled for a moment, when you hear the solution by Jim, at least I was. Its a tricky one, But you can get through it . So what choice would you have made, I’ll update the post with answer after few days.

Update:

This is famous puzzle known as Monty Hall Problem. Wikipedia has very good explanation for this.

Because there is no way for the player to know which of the two unopened doors is the winning door, most people assume that each door has an equal probability and conclude that switching does not matter. In fact, in the usual interpretation of the problem the player should switch—doing so doubles the probability of winning the car, from 1/3 to 2/3.

Also Read: Classic Computer Science Puzzles

Orio’s Riddle Completed
Twisty Puzzles