# What is the Limit?



## samcorrigan (Jul 15, 2015)

Hi guys, so Im doing a Project on the Cube, and the theory behind it, and I am doing a section on the limits, How fast can we actually solve a Rubik's cube?
My question to you is this:
*What do you think the limit for the 3x3x3 Cube is (To the nearest .1 of a second)*. I will be doing some analysing of the results I collect to come to an approximate answer. Cheers.


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## Username (Jul 15, 2015)

Depends on if you want single solves, averages or stuff like that


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## TheCoolMinxer (Jul 15, 2015)

As an average maybe 6.2, single is stupid, because if someone is really good like Feliks, you can get sub3.2 or even less with a LL skip


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## DGCubes (Jul 15, 2015)

In the future I have no doubts that people will average sub-3.5 or sub-4 (or at the very least sub-5, for those who think I'm crazy). If you want a number, I'd say around 3 seconds would be the limit for a global average. Mainly because I have seen, time and time again, predictions from the past that have been so insanely inaccurate. Just look around the Predictions for 2020 thread and you'll see things like the world record average being predicted at 8 seconds. There is no way to accurately predict the future for cubing, and as crazy as it sounds now, I feel like the only way to be correct is to over-predict by a lot. I'm pretty sure Fridrich once claimed (correct me if I'm wrong/making this up) that 2 second averages could be possible (20 move solutions, 10 moves per second), and I could possibly see that happening. Cubing is still in its youth; there is a very very long way to go.


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## samcorrigan (Jul 15, 2015)

Cheers for the responses so far, the inaccuracy of the predictions is something Im going to talk about in the project, as of course its hard to predict future changes. This is more of a current opinion type thing


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## PenguinsDontFly (Jul 15, 2015)

make a poll and use the results from that!


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## cashis (Jul 15, 2015)

DGCubes said:


> I'm pretty sure Fridrich once claimed (correct me if I'm wrong/making this up) that 2 second averages could be possible (20 move solutions, 10 moves per second), and I could possibly see that happening.



I'm pretty sure she said right at five seconds was the limit for CFOP, though I could also be wrong.


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## CubeWizard23 (Jul 15, 2015)

yeah she said 10 TPS 50-60 move solutions ~ 5.xx sec avgs sub 3 singles tho


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## Lucas Garron (Jul 15, 2015)

cashis said:


> I'm pretty sure she said right at five seconds was the limit for CFOP, though I could also be wrong.



No need to guess. Let's back up your claim! 
http://www.ws.binghamton.edu/fridrich/hints.html



> Since the assumption for this estimate will probably be unrealistic for many years to come, I estimate the limit for speed cubing at 5 seconds (the average time).



(Top search result for "fridrich limit".)


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## rubikmaster (Jul 15, 2015)

DGCubes said:


> In the future I have no doubts that people will average sub-3.5 or sub-4 (or at the very least sub-5, for those who think I'm crazy). If you want a number, I'd say around 3 seconds would be the limit for a global average. Mainly because I have seen, time and time again, predictions from the past that have been so insanely inaccurate. Just look around the Predictions for 2020 thread and you'll see things like the world record average being predicted at 8 seconds. There is no way to accurately predict the future for cubing, and as crazy as it sounds now, I feel like the only way to be correct is to over-predict by a lot.
> I'm pretty sure Fridrich once claimed (correct me if I'm wrong/making this up) that 2 second averages could be possible (*20 move solutions*, 10 moves per second), and I could possibly see that happening. Cubing is still in its youth; there is a very very long way to go.


WUUUUT?!


Anyway, I'd say my prediction would be 4.5 for average and 2.8 for single simply because an insanely fast cuber is bound to come across an insanely easy scramble one day (e.g. double x-cross and LL-skip). There's also a good chance a more efficient method than CFOP could come into being during the next decades/centuries. And also, considering an insanely long time limit and the neverending growth of the size of the speedcubing community, an average with 3 or 4 insanely lucky scrambles is also bound to happen.

But hey, we're all just throwing out numbers here. No one can really make an accurate prediction, even if you have 1000 people giving you their prediction it will be no more accuratte than 10 people's predictions. Some people will make a good prediction simply by chance, most will not. I wouldn't really say there is such a thing as an absolute limit. As the records times become lower and lower, their progression will exponentially slow down (e.g. a 1 second progression during the next 10 years, then 0.5 seconds during the 10 years after that, 0.25, 0.125, 0.063, etc.)


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## cashis (Jul 15, 2015)

Lucas Garron said:


> No need to guess. Let's back up your claim!


Thanks Lucas 


rubikmaster said:


> There's also a good chance a more efficient method than CFOP could come into being during the next decades/centuries.


There already are methods that are more efficient than CFOP 
But hey, who knows, maybe Heise will be the most popular method in 10 years.


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## DizzypheasantZZ (Jul 15, 2015)

I think that other methods such as ZZ, ZB, and Heise, which are made to be more efficient, will eventually get better times than CFOP.
CFOP-5.25 average
ZZ-4.75 average
ZB-4.50 average


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## DGCubes (Jul 15, 2015)

rubikmaster said:


> WUUUUT?!



Haha, it definitely sounds crazy to me too, but we are talking all time limits here. If human speedsolvers come to the point where we can see near optimal solutions in inspection (I'm not an FMC-er so I don't know quite how impossible that is), it would theoretically be possible. Keep in mind we could be millennia away from that though.

...

But then again, it may never happen at all.


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## Jason Nguyen (Jul 15, 2015)

cashis said:


> Thanks Lucas
> 
> There already are methods that are more efficient than CFOP
> But hey, who knows, maybe Heise will be the most popular method in 10 years.



There's already a more efficient method, but it has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 algorithms. :/


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## samcorrigan (Jul 15, 2015)

Yea I agree, the predictions wont be accurate, which is half the reason why I'm collecting them  I also believe the only absoloute limit that could arise would be a mechanical one, but obviously this would be a very low limit if it were to be reached.


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## irontwig (Jul 15, 2015)

Lucas Garron said:


> No need to guess. Let's back up your claim!
> http://www.ws.binghamton.edu/fridrich/hints.html



Hindsight is 20/20, but...

http://web.archive.org/web/20030408131531/http://www.ws.binghamton.edu/fridrich/hints.html


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## Stefan (Jul 15, 2015)

_"I estimate the limit for speed cubing at 10-12 seconds (the average time)"_
-- Jessica Fridrich



DGCubes said:


> In the future I have no doubts that people will average sub-3.5 or sub-4 (or at the very least sub-5, for those who think I'm crazy). *If you want a number*



Yes, please. I do want a number. The year of that "future", please.


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## OrigamiCuber1 (Jul 15, 2015)

DGCubes said:


> In the future I have no doubts that people will average sub-3.5 or sub-4 (or at the very least sub-5, for those who think I'm crazy). If you want a number, I'd say around 3 seconds would be the limit for a global average. Mainly because I have seen, time and time again, predictions from the past that have been so insanely inaccurate. Just look around the Predictions for 2020 thread and you'll see things like the world record average being predicted at 8 seconds. There is no way to accurately predict the future for cubing, and as crazy as it sounds now, I feel like the only way to be correct is to over-predict by a lot. I'm pretty sure Fridrich once claimed (correct me if I'm wrong/making this up) that 2 second averages could be possible (20 move solutions, 10 moves per second), and I could possibly see that happening. Cubing is still in its youth; there is a very very long way to go.



Well, you are definitely crazy. Feliks' 3 second was a skip and that was some crazy look ahead. Cubing may be in its youth but it may take human evolution to get that fast.


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## Stefan (Jul 15, 2015)

OrigamiCuber1 said:


> it may take human evolution to get that fast.



Speaking of evolution...


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## cashis (Jul 15, 2015)

Stefan said:


> _"I estimate the limit for speed cubing at 10-12 seconds (the average time)"_
> -- Jessica Fridrich



"Since the assumption for this estimate will probably be unrealistic for many years to come, I estimate the limit for speed cubing at 5 seconds (the average time)."
--Jessica Fridrich

She was talking about something else, though that's still what she said. Although it directly contradicts your quote...whatever,


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## Stefan (Jul 15, 2015)

Can someone do a rolling-average-of-100 progression-over-time diagram for Feliks?



cashis said:


> "Since the assumption for this estimate will probably be unrealistic for many years to come, I estimate the limit for speed cubing at 5 seconds (the average time)."
> --Jessica Fridrich



Um... that quote is not from that page.


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## Petro Leum (Jul 15, 2015)

Stefan said:


> Speaking of evolution...
> 
> http://i59.tinypic.com/c51c1.png



Can't you just make a prediction via regression using this data? i guess that would be the most accurate prediction, right?


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## Ross The Boss (Jul 15, 2015)

there is no _limit_ really. following the principal of diminishing returns, advancements will become increasingly incremental and come at ever greater expense (more practicing, efficiency training, longer times between improvements, etc). there will come a time where improvements by the smallest amount will be as impressive as, oh idunno, something like antoine's sub 11 oh average record (or fazzle's sub 7 single too, i suppose).


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## cashis (Jul 15, 2015)

Stefan said:


> Um... that quote is not from that page.



Wow, sorry. You're right...
(I'm really dyslexic and thought something else)


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## NeilH (Jul 15, 2015)

I predict 5 global average and 3 second single.


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## Christopher Mowla (Jul 15, 2015)

If you by chance will do a later project on estimating world record times on the 4x4x4 - 7x7x7, you can use my prediction formula which simply takes the 3x3x3 world record average of 5 as input. As you can see in that post, it's pretty accurate based on the current single world record times (and I made this formula more than three years ago).


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## molarmanful (Jul 15, 2015)

THE SKY IS THE LIMIT

But seriously, I'd say 3 seconds is the limit for single. 5 seconds is the limit for average. For me, 5 seconds would be entirely possible given that I turned at 10 turns per second (a bit less than my current maximum TPS), little to no pauses (superhuman lookahead), and sub-50 movecount. So a method like Roux could get very far.

But this is just my opinion. It will be hard to get this fast, but possible.


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## TDM (Jul 15, 2015)

We know 10 TPS is possible, since people have been getting near that officially. If we could get up to 12 TPS in the future, with sub-50 movecounts from a method like Roux (let's say 48 average movecount), that's 4 second average. So I'm going to guess people will be getting 4 second averages in the future. Lucky scrambles and you could get a 3.5 average.

PB singles can be half your global average, though it's less likely to be that low with a method like Roux. So if you get a PB single in comp and average 4, that's... 2.5 seconds?


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## newtonbase (Jul 15, 2015)

There are no limits. If someone sets a record then someone else will always beat it. Eventually the margins get very small but it'll keep happening. 

Look at the 100m. People have been failing to predict the limits of that for a century and cubing has far more scope for improvements. There will always be new methods, algs, equipment and training techniques and as it's still a low participation activity progress is relatively slow. 

I think that within 10 years 5s averages will be commonplace and records will be sub 4s but people will continue to get quicker.


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## nalralz (Jul 15, 2015)

I wouldn't be surprised if Feliks got the single down to sub-4.5 and the average to sub-5.5 in the next year or so.


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## Stefan (Jul 15, 2015)

newtonbase said:


> There are no limits. If someone sets a record then someone else will always beat it. Eventually the margins get very small but it'll keep happening.



If the WR goes like 6.5, 6.05, 6.005, 6.0005, 6.00005, etc, then that matches your description and yet there's obviously a limit.

More generally, since the WR sequence is bounded and monotonic, there's a limit.


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## samcorrigan (Jul 15, 2015)

Stefan said:


> If the WR goes like 6.5, 6.05, 6.005, 6.0005, 6.00005, etc, then that matches your description and yet there's obviously a limit.
> 
> More generally, since the WR sequence is bounded and monotonic, there's a limit.



My thought was that we are likely converge onto a limit, Although we may never meet it, we also may never break it, just get closer and closer


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## josh42732 (Jul 15, 2015)

samcorrigan said:


> My thought was that we are likely converge onto a limit, Although we may never meet it, we also may never break it, just get closer and closer



Agreed. It probably just seems like there isn't a limit because we are so far from it, but there is, indeed a limit. I predict like a lot of other people in this thread that the single will be in the 3's and average in the 5's. Although, the current average and single are about 1.25 seconds apart, the single might be high 3 while average might be low 5. But I predict that it will be when all of the young people currently in the community will be "retired" from cubing. Basically, no offense to anybody, but I predict that our generation will not have those solves.


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## JustinTimeCuber (Jul 15, 2015)

rubikmaster said:


> WUUUUT?!



Just because it is Jessica Fridrich doesn't imply that she was talking about the CFOP method. People have gotten 20 move FMC solutions, even below that unofficially. You could average 20 moves. A 2.5 second average is almost definitely possible, probably even a 2 average.


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## cashis (Jul 15, 2015)

JustinTimeCuber said:


> Just because it is Jessica Fridrich doesn't imply that she was talking about the CFOP method. People have gotten 20 move FMC solutions, even below that unofficially. You could average 20 moves. A 2.5 second average is almost definitely possible, probably even a 2 average.


I think I would be accurate in saying that nobody will ever be able to do NISS or other FMC techniques in the 15 second inspection time. Ever.


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## WayneMigraine (Jul 16, 2015)

cashis said:


> I think I would be accurate in saying that nobody will ever be able to do NISS or other FMC techniques in the 15 second inspection time. Ever.



Plus, NISS and a lot of other FMC techniques require you to have the actual scramble that you are solving.


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## obelisk477 (Jul 16, 2015)

It's silly to talk about limits on competition averages. More pertinent to the question is limits for global averages. And to that I say 6 seconds flat, is the fastest global average someone will ever have


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## nvpendsey (Jul 16, 2015)

Seriously no one got this idea?? (Everything is hypothetical)(cube it friction less)
Assume that the corners (of the corners of the cube) are moving at light speed and the cube is regular 57mm.the corners would be (57/2)*sqrt2 away form the axis of rotation.therefore the circumference would be (57/2)*sqrt2*2pi = 57*sqrt*pi.dividing it by 4 to get the length traveled by the corner in one Quater turn (57*sqrt2*pi/4).Dividing this by speed of light (in mm/s) to get the minimum time taken for one quarter.(2.112 x 10^-10 sec per move)And then multiplying this value with god number ie. 26 (in QTM). The final answer is 5.491 * 10^-9 seconds or approx 5.5 nano seconds


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## cmhardw (Jul 16, 2015)

nvpendsey said:


> Seriously no one got this idea?? (Everything is hypothetical)(cube it friction less)
> Assume that the corners (of the corners of the cube) are moving at light speed and the cube is regular 57mm.the corners would be (57/2)*sqrt2 away form the axis of rotation.therefore the circumference would be (57/2)*sqrt2*2pi = 57*sqrt*pi.dividing it by 4 to get the length traveled by the corner in one Quater turn (57*sqrt2*pi/4).Dividing this by speed of light (in mm/s) to get the minimum time taken for one quarter.(2.112 x 10^-10 sec per move)And then multiplying this value with god number ie. 26 (in QTM). The final answer is 5.491 * 10^-9 seconds or approx 5.5 nano seconds



Very cool post 

This approach reminds me of the myth busters episode about catching an arrow in mid air.


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## OLLiver (Jul 16, 2015)

Better estimate high I suppose.
Avg record I will say sub 4.5 (ZB/ZZ) 4VER!!!!!!!!!! ZBLL IS THE WAY OF THE FUTURE! BUT YOU CAN ONLY LEARN IT IF YOU ARE CRAZY!!!!!
Single- Feliks 3.2ish LL skip solve- If that solve had had (2 hads lol) an Xcross/XXcross. It could have been sub 3- the first ever. One day someone like faz will get one in competition so I will guess around 2.5-2.7 seconds for single.


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## OLLiver (Jul 16, 2015)

Better estimate high I suppose.
Avg record I will say sub 4.5 (ZB/ZZ) 4VER!!!!!!!!!! ZBLL IS THE WAY OF THE FUTURE! BUT YOU CAN ONLY LEARN IT IF YOU ARE CRAZY!!!!!
Single- Feliks 3.2ish LL skip solve- If that solve had had (2 hads lol) an Xcross/XXcross. It could have been sub 3- the first ever. One day someone like faz will get one in competition so I will guess around 2.5-2.7 seconds for single.


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## Sajwo (Jul 16, 2015)

Jessica Fridrich is not a reliable source. She's just another slow cuber. Obviously there is a limit that we will never exceed. I would say low 3 single and high 4 average.


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## Ordway Persyn (Jul 16, 2015)

4.8 is my prediction for global average.


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## Stefan (Jul 16, 2015)

Ordway Persyn said:


> 4.8 is my prediction for global average.



When?


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## TDM (Jul 16, 2015)

Sajwo said:


> Jessica Fridrich is not a reliable source. *She's just another slow cuber.* Obviously there is a limit that we will never exceed. I would say low 3 single and high 4 average.


I agree that I have no idea why everyone was using her as a source before, but how does speed make any difference on knowledge?


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## Myachii (Jul 16, 2015)

Sajwo said:


> Jessica Fridrich is not a reliable source. She's just another slow cuber. Obviously there is a limit that we will never exceed. I would say low 3 single and high 4 average.



So slow cuber means they know nothing?

Yeah, I guess Lars Petrus and Frank Morris and all the others who would be considered "slow" today obviously have no idea what they're talking about.

And although she may not be the most reliable, she did create the method that has been used in every WR solve excluding 1982. It's still nice to have her opinion because of her big contributions to speedcubing.

That's like saying why do people ask Feliks about his opinion on the limits of speedcubing. Of course he isn't the most reliable source, but his fame means people would like to know his own opinion anyway.

Whilst we're on the topic - who would you deem as a "reliable" source?


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## PenguinsDontFly (Jul 16, 2015)

In my opinion, the limit is 1LLL/ZBLL (3 step cfop------>CFL or ZZ with ZBLL). Bindedsa is the limit.


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## MM99 (Jul 16, 2015)

When it's all said and done my pbs will be the limit


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## TPC (Jul 17, 2015)

Sajwo said:


> Jessica Fridrich is not a reliable source. She's just another slow cuber. Obviously there is a limit that we will never exceed. I would say low 3 single and high 4 average.



Speed doesn't determine knowledge, though. You don't have to be fast to have a very good understanding of the cube. Being fast often comes down to simply raw TPS. Fridrich invented a, dare I say, genius method for 3x3. She was one of the innovators of speed cubing. I think her opinion ought to be worth *something*. Look at people like Tony Fisher and Oskar Van Deventer; Tony must have a pretty good understanding of the cube to have figured it out on his own. Oskar shows a very good understanding of how parts interact through the wide variety of puzzles he has invented. Neither of them, however, are fast at all. So maybe Jessica Fridrich's opinion may not be correct, maybe she's not a reliable source, but who actually is? Does there exist any "reliable source" for something like this? It's all vague opinions and conjectures. You cannot cast aside a person's opinion on this topic purely based on speed.


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## IRNjuggle28 (Jul 17, 2015)

PenguinsDontFly said:


> In my opinion, the limit is 1LLL/ZBLL (3 step cfop------>CFL or ZZ with ZBLL). Bindedsa is the limit.


Bindedsa is nowhere near done, and he's said before that he actually took learning algs pretty slowly. He thinks he's capable of much more than he's done, and that other people are too. He's nowhere near his own limit, and nobody is anywhere near the human limit.


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## OLLiver (Jul 17, 2015)

IRNjuggle28 said:


> Bindedsa is nowhere near done, and he's said before that he actually took learning algs pretty slowly. He thinks he's capable of much more than he's done, and that other people are too. He's nowhere near his own limit, and nobody is anywhere near the human limit.



To Sir BindedSa-what other algorithm sets do you plan to learn? knowing full ZBLL is 7/57 of full 1LLL I believe.


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## cashis (Jul 17, 2015)

OLLiver said:


> To Sir BindedSa-what other algorithm sets do you plan to learn? knowing full ZBLL is 7/57 of full 1LLL I believe.



he knows a lot more than just zbll.


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## CyanSandwich (Jul 17, 2015)

In the year 2027, someone will 1-look a 13 move solution, when the fast people are averaging 13 TPS per solve. They will get a 1.10, hitting a "not bad" 11.8 TPS.

A 3.0 global average seems like a reasonable limit to me though. Somewhere between 15 tps/45 moves, and 10 tps/30 moves.


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## PenguinsDontFly (Jul 17, 2015)

CyanSandwich said:


> In the year 2027, someone will 1-look a 13 move solution, when the fast people are averaging 13 TPS per solve. They will get a 1.10, hitting a "not bad" 11.8 TPS.
> 
> A 3.0 global average seems like a reasonable limit to me though. Somewhere between 15 tps/45 moves, and 10 tps/30 moves.



what method?


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## JustinTimeCuber (Jul 17, 2015)

I'm just gonna make a prediction here:
By 2020, the WR single will be 3.22 and the average will be 4.98.
They will be beaten during the same solve.
[4.57 5.48 (6.77) 4.90 (3.22) ] = 4.98 WR average

The method will be CFOP for the counting times. The 6.77 is a Roux solve because of a really easy F2B. However, the solver, who uses CFOP as their main method, does not know the CMLL alg and has to 2-look, resulting in a "poor" time. The 3.22 is a 4 move XXCross and a forced EOLL skip, and COLL to a solved cube.


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## CyanSandwich (Jul 17, 2015)

PenguinsDontFly said:


> what method?


Don't know. Could be a method that doesn't exist yet. Maybe being method neutral will be popular too.


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## molarmanful (Jul 17, 2015)

CyanSandwich said:


> Maybe being method neutral will be popular too.


METHOD NEUTRAL FTW! (Yeah, I'm method-neutral Petrus/CFOP/Columns-first, so FreeFOP).


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## OLLiver (Jul 17, 2015)

cashis said:


> he knows a lot more than just zbll.


What else doth he know O wise one>>


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## leeo (Jul 17, 2015)

With the increasing competition of the 3x3x3, I believe that within a generation, sub 4-second averages will be achieved with something like a 75-algorithms set from the initial scramble. It just remains to discover the algorithms and the method. I think it will work much like a 2x2x2 method that now achieves sub 1-second solves.


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## TDM (Jul 17, 2015)

OLLiver said:


> What else doth he know O wise one>>


I think he knows Line, Tripod and pure OLL, as well as a few other 1lLL algs.


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## mark49152 (Jul 17, 2015)

TDM said:


> I think he knows Line, Tripod and pure OLL, as well as a few other 1lLL algs.


"Know" isn't a binary. When people say they know 1LLL algs I simply don't believe that they are genuinely recognising the case and selecting a 1LLL solution specific to that case, from multiple 1LLL options, for a case that only arises every few thousand solves - at least, not at speed.

Of course, I could learn which 1LLL case is solved by each of my OLLs and claim I saw it coming, or I could learn multiple OLLs and pick between them based on permutations, but that's not the same thing. You can't really claim to use an alg for 1LLL unless you don't use it for other 1LLL cases (IMHO).


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## Tony Fisher (Jul 17, 2015)

As someone else stated you can't have a limit. You can predict the best that anyone will achieve before the human race dies out but that's not really a limit (unless you get into "cause and effect" arguments). You could probably introduce lower and higher bounds but not a single time that can be achieved and not beaten. For example if someone did 1.7784457 seconds how can you say that 1.7784456 is impossible? 
Regarding the higher bounds, if people can do 10 TPS and God's algorithm is 20 we can safely say that 2 seconds is achievable, can't we? I am not talking about people solving in the minimum number of moves by skill, I mean by luck.


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