# German TV show with Herbert and me



## Stefan (Jul 29, 2008)

Yesterday on German TV the "Heute Journal" showed cubing, including Herbert Kociemba and me. Short text on their front page and two videos (the aired clip plus me blindsolving veeery slowly (I suck)):

http://www.heute.de/
http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/content/549720?inPopup=true
http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/content/550006?inPopup=true


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## tim (Jul 29, 2008)

Nice videos and nice environment for bld cubing .

But why did you have so huge delays? Were they just memo recall delays?

/edit: rofl, he calls you a "freak" (3 times ).


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## joey (Jul 29, 2008)

So, who will create the transcript?
Tim/Dennis/Stefan/Charlie?


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## tim (Jul 29, 2008)

joey said:


> So, who will create the transcript?
> Tim/Dennis/Stefan/Charlie?



I vote for Charlie, since she's a native english speaker .


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## Stefan (Jul 29, 2008)

Transcript? I vote for anyone except me cause I... um... don't care enough. Just learn German, joey. Dammit.

And yes, my memorization and recall suck a lot, causing many big delays. And at about two points I had to think which alg to use because shortly before the interview I had replaced some images with new ones and had switched to the dumbed down M2/R2 where I use the longer algs to solve all pieces directly and not leave orientation of some until the end. So I wasn't used to that yet. One was at the very end, where the cube is already solved and I had to think several seconds about whether I still had to do an R2 turn.

Except for them calling me "freak", I like the resulting clip very much. We filmed much more and they took out nice pieces and arranged them and all the other stuff quite nicely.


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## Raffael (Jul 29, 2008)

really nice clips.

i especially like the ending of the first one:
"Pochmann - ein Freak - ein würdiger Meister"
(english: "Pochmann - a freak - a worthy master")

even though they're calling you freak, it still sounds like a compliment.


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## nitrocan (Jul 29, 2008)

i dont get why the cubers get to be called freaks, we should be called "superhuman geniouses"  or clever is also OK


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## pcharles93 (Jul 29, 2008)

nitrocan said:


> i dont get why the cubers get to be called freaks, we should be called "superhuman geniouses"  or clever is also OK



For a person who thinks they are a "superhuman genious" you have a weird way of spelling "genius"


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## Dene (Jul 29, 2008)

Ah so this is what Mr. Pochmann sounds like! It's a shame the video was all squashed for me and I couldn't work out how to make it the proper size.


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## tim (Jul 29, 2008)

Dene said:


> Ah so this is what Mr. Pochmann sounds like! It's a shame the video was all squashed for me and I couldn't work out how to make it the proper size.



For me too, you have to wait until the bar at the bottom slides down or just press on the small arrow in the right down corner.


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## nitrocan (Jul 29, 2008)

pcharles93 said:


> nitrocan said:
> 
> 
> > i dont get why the cubers get to be called freaks, we should be called "superhuman geniouses"  or clever is also OK
> ...



well im not english so excouse me


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## pcharles93 (Jul 30, 2008)

nitrocan said:


> pcharles93 said:
> 
> 
> > nitrocan said:
> ...



Neither am I. I'm Vietnamese. Now, you're just trying to annoy me. "Excouse"?


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## CharlieCooper (Jul 30, 2008)

tim said:


> joey said:
> 
> 
> > So, who will create the transcript?
> ...



thanks tim  

maybe after work....

i say this not having watched the clip... i do hope it's not long!

EDIT: no


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## Sin-H (Aug 1, 2008)

I'll do it now.


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## nitrocan (Aug 1, 2008)

pcharles93 said:


> nitrocan said:
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im just saying people make mistakes. whats with all this correction going on


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## Sin-H (Aug 1, 2008)

There is it: 

Presenter:
For those of us who could already count until three [in German, this means that you are a bit mature and not stupid in a childish way] 28 years ago, he’s unforgotten: the Rubik’s Cube [“Zauberwürfel” in German is used a lot; I will translate it with “Rubik’s Cube”].
In 1980, it appeared in Germany, being both a toy and a riddle. It made millions of people mad until it disappeared again in the middle of the eighties. It hasn’t let the mathematicians alone until nowadays; the colored cube has always been a lot more than just a game, although the cube has had a comeback also as a toy, but…
Toy is the wrong word, actually. A piece of sports equipment would be a better name, as Christian Kirsch found out.

Narrator: Enter a freak: Stefan Pochmann and his ten fingers are busy very often, you rarely see him without the Rubik’s Cube. Pochmann is the german champion in “speedcubing”, no one solves the cube faster: no matter how it’s mixed up, Pochmann stays under 20 seconds easily.

Stefan: It’s just like… I sometimes just sit down somewhere and scramble the cube and solve it again and so on. But I can also do that on the computer, where I am shown a “scrambling algorithm” [he actually said “Verdrehreihenfolge”, which would mean “mixing sequence”]. Then I mix the cube up according to that and I can just measure the time directly on the computer which then makes statistics like: how fast I could solve the cube on the average…

Narrator: The Rubik’s Cube is celebrating his renaissance. But for science, this toy is much more than just fun. This three-dimensional marvelous thing is highly complex and has been eyed for years by mathematicians all over the world. They are even using modern high-end computers for this cube and its 26 little cubies. The central question is: How many moves are at most required to solve the cube, no matter how it’s scrambled. One of the leaders is the german mathematics teacher Herbert Kociemba [This one is not really equal, but I hope it’s enough].

Herbert: I apply 5 or 6 moves to the cube. Now it’s nearly impossible for a human being to solve it again using 6 moves, you just don’t see how it used to be. If I now scramble the cube in 15 or 20 moves, even a computer has huge problems to find the way back; and then you need really sophisticated methods to do that.

Narrator: That seems to bet true: according to the mathematician’s knowledge, there are 43 quintillion possible ways to scramble the cube, which is a number with 18 zeros standing at the beginn of one of the big problems in mathematics. But Kociemba is not far away of the solution.

Herbert: With my program – it is a computer program that does the work –, I could solve each cube in about 20 moves which used to take us about 40 to 50 moves.

Narrator: Computers start to reveal the secret of the cube, here at a cube which has 20 cubies edge length. So, how many moves does it take us at most? Some mathematicians call the answer to this question God’s Number. And the clues saying that 20 is the solution are getting more, but the mathematicians are not yet fully sure about it.

At the same time, the cube freaks are meeting in internet forums, some even turn the cube in two hands at the same time.

Stefan: The internet gives us the occasion to communicate all over the world and to find all the others who are interested in the cube as well, and so we found out: „hey, there actually are others!“…

Narrator: And some, like Stefan Pochmann, sometimes even solve the problem blindfolded. Pochmann, a freak, a worthy champion.


The German version:
Moderatorin:
Für diejenigen unter uns, die vor 28 Jahren schon bis drei zählen konnten, ist er unvergessen: der Zauberwürfel.1980 tauchte er in Deutschland auf, war Spielzeug und Rätsel zugleich, brachte zig Millionen Menschen um den Verstand, bis er Mitte der Achtziger wieder von der Bildfläche verschwand. Mathematikern lässt er aber bis heute keine Ruhe, denn der bunte Würfel war eben von Anfang an sehr viel mehr als nur ein Spiel, doch auch als Spielzeug hat der Würfel ein Comeback erlebt, wobei… Spielzeug ist eigentlich das falsche Wort. Sportgerät wäre passender, wie Christian Kirsch festgestellt hat. 

Erzähler: Auftritt eines Freaks: Stefan Pochmann und seine zehn Finger haben meistens viel zu tun, ohne Zauberwürfel trifft man ihn selten. Pochmann ist deutscher Meister im Speedcubing, niemand knackt den Würfel schneller: egal wie verdreht, Pochmann bleibt locker unter 20 Sekunden.

Stefan: Es ist einfach so, dass ich mich irgendwohin setze und so normal verdrehe und löse, verdrehe und löse; das geht aber auch so richtig am Computer, wo ich mir dann so eine Verdrehreihenfolge vom Computer zeigen lasse, dann entsprechend verdrehe und dann auch auf dem Computer gleich die Zeit messe; der führt dann Statistiken: wie schnell ich im Durchschnitt war…

Erzähler: Rubik’s Cube, der Zauberwürfel, feiert seine Renaissance. Doch für die Wissenschaft bietet das Spielzeug weit mehr als Spaß. Hochkomplex ist das dreidimensionale Wunderding und seit Jahren weltweit im Visier der Mathematiker. Sie rücken dem Würfel und seinen 26 kleinen Würfelchen inzwischen mit Hochleistungscomputern zu Leibe, die zentrale Frage: Wie viele Züge werden höchstens gebraucht, um den Würfel wieder zu ordnen, egal, wie verdreht er ist. Ganz vorne an der Front der Rechner: der deutsche Mathematiklehrer Herbert Kociemba.

Herbert: Ich verdreh den 5,6 Mal. Dann ist es jetzt für einen Menschen, sag ich schon mal, fast unmöglich, ihn jetzt wieder in sechs Zügen zurückzudrehen, das sieht man einfach nicht mehr, wie das war. Wenn ich das jetzt aber zum Beispiel dann 15 Mal oder 20 Mal verdrehe, dann hat selbst ein Computer eigentlich gigantische Probleme, den Weg zurück wieder zu finden und da braucht man dann schon sehr ausgefeilte Methoden um das zu machen.

Erzähler: Wohl war, denn 43 Trillionen Möglichkeiten, wissen die Mathematiker, gibt es, den Würfel zu verdrehen, eine Zahl mit 18 Nullen [Aufpassen, Englisch: quintillion] steht am Anfang eines der großen Rätsel der Mathematik. Doch Kociemba ist der Lösung nahe.

Herbert: Was vorher also… sagen wir mal, im Schnitt vielleicht 40 bis 50 Züge gebraucht hatte, hab ich dann mit meinem Programm – also es ist ein Computerprogramm, das das dann eigentlich erledigt – geschafft, eigentlich jeden Würfel in ca. 20 Zügen in seine Ausgangsstellung zurückzubringen.

Erzähler: Computer machen sich an die Arbeit, das Geheimnis des Würfels zu knacken, hier an einem Würfel mit 20 Würfeln Kantenlänge. Wie viele Züge also brauchen wir höchstens? Die Antwort auf die Frage nennen manche Mathematiker die Zahl Gottes. Und es mehren sich die Hinweise, dass die Lösung die 20 ist, doch so ganz sicher ist man sich noch nicht.

Derweil treffen sich die Würfelfreaks in Internetforen, manche drehen den Würfel zeitgleich in zwei Händen.

Stefan: Das Internet gibt uns eben die Möglichkeit, weltweit zu kommunizieren und die ganzen anderen zu finden, die’s auch interessiert, und so haben wir eben festgestellt „Hoppla, da sind ja noch andere“…

Erzähler: Und manche, wie Stefan Pochmann, lösen das Problem manchmal sogar blind. Pochmann, ein Freak, ein würdiger Meister.


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## blah (Aug 1, 2008)

I thought Meister meant Master? (I know it's not the most reliable source, but I learned this from American Pie )

Thanks for the translation anyway  Great job!


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## CharlieCooper (Aug 1, 2008)

nice one on the translation!


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## joey (Aug 1, 2008)

Woah, I was only joking when I was asking for a translation! Or hoping that Charlie would step up and prove her skills! (apart from a german essay that she once sent me!)

Thanks Huber!


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## AvGalen (Aug 1, 2008)

I think I would translate Meister to Master in most circumstances, but since Weltmeister means worldchampion (and Stefan was a World Champion) I agree with this translation.

The thing that puzzles me is "manche drehen den Würfel zeitgleich in zwei Händen". I always thought using both hands was normal, but the way it is phrased makes it sound like other ways (one-handed, with feet) is the normal way to do it


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## CharlieCooper (Aug 1, 2008)

joey said:


> Woah, I was only joking when I was asking for a translation! Or hoping that Charlie would step up and prove her skills! (apart from a german essay that she once sent me!)
> 
> Thanks Huber!



i have few skills to prove


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## Sin-H (Aug 1, 2008)

blah said:


> I thought Meister meant Master? (I know it's not the most reliable source, but I learned this from American Pie )
> 
> Thanks for the translation anyway  Great job!



Yes, Meister means Master, but the word "deutscher Meister" means that Stefan has won the German Nationals, and the winner of the German Nationals is called German Champion, I think...

--> In German, you also say "Weltmeister" when you mean World Champion.

At the end, I'm not sure if they mean Master or Champion, I'd rather say Master... so it's more or less a mistake...


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## Stefan (Aug 1, 2008)

I'd say it's a quite good translation. And I'm surprised someone actually did it. I've never seen a translation/transcript of any of the French, Polish, Dutch, etc cubing videos. You probably have no life and no friends. Geek. And of course you're probably Asian. I learned that on youtube.


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## AvGalen (Aug 1, 2008)

StefanPochmann said:


> I'd say it's a quite good translation. And I'm surprised someone actually did it. I've never seen a translation/transcript of any of the French, Polish, Dutch, etc cubing videos. You probably have no life and no friends. Geek. And of course you're probably Asian. I learned that on youtube.


If you learned stuff from youtube that proves you are a lazy ass no-good koober with no life that can't spell rite. No wonder you didn't make the translation yourself 

P.S. Is it just me, or is Stefan becoming softer lately? His humor is now also understandable by people that don't know him.


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## CharlieCooper (Aug 1, 2008)

AvGalen said:


> StefanPochmann said:
> 
> 
> > I'd say it's a quite good translation. And I'm surprised someone actually did it. I've never seen a translation/transcript of any of the French, Polish, Dutch, etc cubing videos. You probably have no life and no friends. Geek. And of course you're probably Asian. I learned that on youtube.
> ...



the translation is FAKE anyway. i know somebody who can translate four times faster with their eyes closed....


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## jazzthief81 (Aug 1, 2008)

CharlieCooper said:


> AvGalen said:
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> > StefanPochmann said:
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Of course it's fake! Can't you see he just translated it from English to German and then reversed it?


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## Markus Pirzer (Aug 1, 2008)

AvGalen said:


> I think I would translate Meister to Master in most circumstances, but since Weltmeister means worldchampion (and Stefan was a World Champion) I agree with this translation.


 
Yes, it's correct. The meaning of the word "Meister" depends on the context. A Master is called "Meister" in German, but there's also no other word for a champion than "Meister". A championship is called "Meisterschaft" in German.



> The thing that puzzles me is "manche drehen den Würfel zeitgleich in zwei Händen". I always thought using both hands was normal, but the way it is phrased makes it sound like other ways (one-handed, with feet) is the normal way to do it



You must watch the video to see what is meant: There's someone who solved 2 cubes at the same time (!!!) - one in the left hand and one in the right hand.


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## Sin-H (Aug 1, 2008)

StefanPochmann said:


> I'd say it's a quite good translation. And I'm surprised someone actually did it. I've never seen a translation/transcript of any of the French, Polish, Dutch, etc cubing videos. You probably have no life and no friends. Geek. And of course you're probably Asian. I learned that on youtube.



1. I have a life and friends. I just did not have anything better to do at 10 o'clock in the morning.
2. Geek? Probably not more than you are --> They called you a freak 3 times!!!
3. I'm not Asian. My ethnicity is 100% Austrian/Alemannic. Everybody thinks that I'm Asian just because I can handle chopsticks...

(Just in case your assumptions were no jokes  )


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## blah (Aug 1, 2008)

What's Alemanic:confused: I tried Wikipedia, no article on that.

Would you be surprised that 1 billion Asians _*can't*_ handle chopsticks?


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## Sin-H (Aug 1, 2008)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alemannic

There it is about the language. The alemanic tribe was a west germanic tribe. In my region, Vorarlberg(extremely Western Austria), we speak an alemanic dialect. The village in which I live has one of the extremest alemanic dialects, people from our neighbour town Bavarian dialects...

The people in Vorarlberg don't even have problems with understanding ancient German as our language is quite similar to that.

Our language seems to be similar to the German spoken in Switzerland for others, but the words and pronounciation are really different. Still, Swiss people and Vorarlbergian people speak an alemannic dialect.

Did I mention that we are proud of our language???


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