Joho the Blog: A Rubik's Cube solution that for me needs a solution

October 22, 2006

A Rubik's Cube solution that for me needs a solution

I am so poorly oriented in space that I cannot make a checkers move without first physically moving the piece. I can stand on a marked street corner with a map and a compass and still go wrong 50% of the time. When I take a shirt out of a drawer, I can't predict which half will be on my left, although I do pride myself on rarely going wrong about which will be the outside.

So, this "procedure" for solving a Rubik's Cube is to me indistinguishable from gibberish, even though I'm certain that it's right. [Tags: rubik's_cube puzzles]

Posted by D. Weinberger at October 22, 2006 11:22 AM

Comments

Thanks, Joho, for confessing this shortcoming, which could almost qualify as a disability. My husband has great respect for your intelligence, so he has had to confess that my own poor ability to orient myself in space does not make me a complete idiot. That was not his take on the situation when we had our new 36-foot motorhome plus a tow car lost on narrow, confusing streets in New Orleans, and I couldn't begin to relate the streets I saw out the windshield to our position on the GPS display on a map on our laptop, even though it was laying down "bread-crumb" arrows in real time. He did not quite have apoplexy before we came upon a derelict shopping center where he could park long enough for him to study the map and figure out how to get us back to our intended route. In time, he became much more patient with my shortcomings as a navigator, and I was able to improve a bit.

Posted by: Frost Fan | October 22, 2006 05:26 PM

Sounds like you and I could have a smack down about who's worse at this. I ytoo have a GPS because I can't read maps. I can't read the GPS either if I set it so that north is always up. I can read it pretty well - although I still make embarrassing mistakes on occasion - if I set it so that my little triangle is always heading up. Or maybe it's the other way around. I can't picture it in my head.

On the positive side, we've lived in the same neighborhood for 20 years, but because I can't remember how street segments fit together, I'm constantly being surprised.

Posted by: David Weinberger | October 22, 2006 06:08 PM

I have the ability to be confused by a map even when I am standing on a street corner, holding in my hands a map where I can see the exact streetcorner I'm standing on.

But!!! Once I found myself holding a map with a built-in compass. When I turned my body so that I was facing north, by the compass, then all of a sudden the streets in my map (north-side-up) and the streets in front of me began to make sense again.

I am awed by people who can imaginatively rotate space in their heads. And also by my daughter, who can solve a messed-up Rubik's cube within minutes.

Posted by: Betsy Devine | October 22, 2006 06:09 PM

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