It makes sense, I was just surprised that someone had actually applied mathematics fo juggling. :) The discussion (on a subway from the regional Immigration office to the town where I live) was so fascinating that I resolved to write about a juggler character on an upcoming novel project.

And knowing how to solve one puzzle gives you a tool if you find another that’s isomorphic, or even just shares some structural similarities.

(The “physical analogies” section in the Wikipedia entry on “isomorphism” will help with an understanding of the word “isomorphic” if someone’s not familiar with it. Google “isomorphic” and that Wikipedia entry will be the first hit.)

I would be curious to know more, but I betcha I could google around, as well. I’ll let you know…

And http://youtube.com/watch?v=s1vFV0jVjYE – watch it. There are less immediate useful applications; once you figure out how the cube works, you can apply some of the skills you sharpened in figuring it out to other things. It always seemed to be the math geeks that really did well with the cubes; maybe being good with the cube is just some sort of indicator of other talents, and one that you can show off in competition more easily than the others.

Of course, if you just memorize the book (there was a book, and I knew a couple of guys who just memorized it and didn’t really think about it), you don’t get so many of the benefits. My father would NOT let us have the book, period, until my sister was given one as a Christmas present by a well-meaning (but clueless about my father’s intent regarding our personal education) relative.

I noticed in the video that the cubes that they were solving quickly were of the best looseness — you want it loose enough that it moves quickly, but not so loose that it falls apart if you do something just slightly wrong when you’re doing it quickly. (I have seen someone’s cube fall apart on him like that.)

(My father showed me two techniques when I was in 6th grade, got a 2X2X2 cube and that made it easier for me to figure out the corner stuff; I don’t use the same method that most other cube-solvers use, I do something different. I bought myself a 5-cube on sale after Christmas, but haven’t taken it out of the box yet.)

Scientific American had a column on the math of the thing at some point. I may have the issue with that article, not sure, but if you ask nicely, I may go dig through what I have and see if it’s there. (Wikipedia informs me that I’m looking for the March 1981 issue. The July 1982 issue was too late for when I remember my father reading it and trying to teach me the notation & graphing; I didn’t get the stuff on paper, but I “got” the cube-y goodness itself. Maybe I’ll get the notation, etc. now, it’s not as if I haven’t enjoyed reading Hofstadter since 1984….)

OK, I’ll stop my cube babbling now. I may come back later.

This Tuesday/Wednesday, we’re going to talk about copyright and remicing, and then on Thursday/Friday, they’re going to present their Koreanized/Sinicized (for the exchange students) versions of Superman in randomly assigned places/periods of history. After the presentations, we’re going to look at some trailer remixes and discuss them in terms of personal expression, copyright, and ownership of culture. (In simpler terms, of course.) Next week, I think a little more on copyright — I may crib a lecture from Lessig’s Free Culture — and then, I think, we’ll start in on V for Vendetta. The graphic novels should be in the week after that, on Thursday, so we’ll be in with lots of time to read.

I’ll have a look for the Ericson and the article on expertise. Thanks for the reference.

regarding the guys and the rubiks cubes, it comes down to time on task. One article that really influenced my thinking on language acquisition is not even about language acquisition. It’s about expertise and it was really easy to see the connection between hours put into an activity/skill and the subsequent level of expertise. It’s a really interesting article – google ericson and expertise. You’ll find all kinds of interesting stuff. I can’t remember if I wrote about it on my blog, but if you search the archives there’s probably something there as well.