FYI -- http://www.neu.edu/nupr/news/0407/rubik.html Northeastern University Researchers Solve Rubik's Cube in 26 Moves Northeastern University News (06/01/07) Northeastern University computer science professor Gene Cooperman and graduate student Dan Kunkle have proven that any configuration of a Rubik's cube can be solved in 26 moves. The research from Cooperman and Kunkle improves upon the previous record by one move. The use of 7 TB of distributed disk as an extension to RAM for holding large tables and the development of faster computer moves using mathematical group theory were keys to their research efforts. Once all of the configurations of a Rubik's cube were placed in a family of sets of configurations, the researchers focused on applying a single move to the family of cosets at once. They used the new mathematical group theory technique to simulate the result on a computer at a rate of 100,000,000 times per second. Computers at Teragrid and Northeastern were used. "Search and enumeration is a large research area encompassing many researchers working in different disciplines--from artificial intelligence to operations," says Coo perman. "The Rubik's cube allows researchers from different disciplines to compare their methods on a single, well-known problem."