Quantum physics already feels like a puzzle, but now scientists have made it more literal. A team of mathematicians from the University of Colorado Boulder has designed a quantum Rubik’s cube, with infinite possible states and some weird new moves available to solve it.
The classic (and classical) Rubik’s cube is what’s known as a permutation puzzle, which requires players to perform certain actions to rearrange one of a number of possible permutations into a ‘solved’ state.
In the case of the infamous cube, that’s around 43 quintillion possible combinations of small colored blocks being sorted into six, consistently-colored faces through a series of constrained movements.