The most improbable thing you've ever seen?

[Borodog]

This is almost certainly the freakiest thing I have ever done/witnessed. My mother-in-law gave me a "Soduku cube" for christmas, which is like a Rubik's cube, except that it has 6 sets of numbers from 1-9 rather than 6 sets of 9 identical blocks of color. The object is to put the numerals 1-9 on each face. When she gave it to me, it was mixed up.

Now, I don't really have any interest in Soduku. I have not attempted to "solve" the cube. However, since she gave it to me on December 27th, it has sat next to my computer, and I occasionally pick it up and rotate it for a few minutes. Note that I have NOT tried to solve it; I just rotate it endlessly as a nervous thing to do with my hands. I've probably rotated it several hundred to a thousand times in the past 2 weeks.

So I'm doing that today, not 10 minutes ago, and I happen to look down and notice that the "top" face is "solved"; all numerals 1-9. I showed my wife and wondered, "What are the odds of that?"

I turned it over and looked at the "bottom" face and realized it too was solved. I then looked at the sides and realized that with a single 90 degree rotation of the "top" plane, the entire cube was solved.

In other words, I solved the damn thing by accident.

Now, I have not attempted any sort of probabilistic analysis of this thing to check just how unlikely it is. I do know that it is possible to "solve" one face and not solve the entire cube many different ways. It would seem on the face of it that this is spectacularly, astronomically unlikely.

I have to tell you I am slightly freaked out by this. I understand that the "solved" configuration is no more unlikely than any random configuration, just as a royal flush in spades is no more unlikely to be dealt than any five particular random cards. There are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible configurations of the cube. As far as I know, only one of these is "solved" correctly.

And before you say it, I would cry bull [censored] as well. Unfortunately, this actually happened.

So, what is the most unlikely/improbable/miraculous [censored] you've ever witnessed?

[Chaos_ult]

I'd wager the human mind is incredibly more complex than we realize.

That said, I'd also say that it's possible you were actually solving the puzzle subconsciously (semi-consciously?)

[NT!]

dude you are like a physicist or something, i'm sure you just did it by accident.

but you're an anarchist too, so you can't be THAT smart. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] yeah pretty unlikely



the craziest thing i ever saw or did was probably fall asleep on the Taconic Parkway and hit one of maybe three guardrails on the entire northern stretch of that road instead of a big rock or cliff or something. lucky me.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd wager the human mind is incredibly more complex than we realize.

That said, I'd also say that it's possible you were actually solving the puzzle subconsciously (semi-consciously?)

[/ QUOTE ]

Not a chance in hell. I usually don't even LOOK at the thing when playing with it. It is a total nervous keep-my-hands-busy thing. If I had not looked down when I did, I would have zoomed right through the "solved" state and never realized it.

[Jshuttlesworth]

there's probably more than one congifuration that is solved.

[KneeCo]

Cliff Notes: Your mother in law doesn't really like you or think you're remotely good enough for her daughter.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
Cliff Notes: Your mother in law doesn't really like you or think you're remotely good enough for her daughter.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, she thinks I'm the shiznit. She's always buying me puzzles, which is usually a good bet; I just have no interest in Soduku. Sudoku? Suduko? Sodomy?

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
there's probably more than one congifuration that is solved.

[/ QUOTE ]

If anyone could confirm this, I would appreciate it. But how many possible "solved" configurations can there be out of 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 total possible configurations?

[GBP04]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
there's probably more than one congifuration that is solved.

[/ QUOTE ]

If anyone could confirm this, I would appreciate it. But how many possible "solved" configurations can there be out of 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 total possible configurations?

[/ QUOTE ]

If that is the number, I would say that it is extremely likely you subconsciously did this. Regardless, either scenario is amazing.

[d10]

Where did you get your 43.... number from? Are you taking into account things like the 5s will never move, possibly other situations that I'm not going to think out?