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Los Angeles (LA) Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Technical Activity Committee on Artificial Intelligence (TACART)

             TACART

TOPIC:       Finding Optimal Solutions to Rubik's Cube

SPEAKER:     Prof. Richard Korf, UCLA

DATE:        03 December 1997 (Wednesday night)
             [Note: this is a special Joint Meeting
              with the LA Chapter of the ACM; hence
              the unusual time and location. This
              will be our only meeting in December.]

TIME:        The talk will begin at 8:00.

PLACE:       The Ramada Hotel, Culver City, 6333 Bristol Parkway
             405S: exit Sepulveda/Centinela; 405N: Slauson/Sepulveda
             Hotel Tel # (310) 670-3200.

ABSTRACT:    Rubik's Cube has been around since the late 70s.
             While most human and computer algorithms require
             50 to 100 moves to solve the cube, this talk will
             describe the first computer program to solve the
             cube using the minimum number of moves, which is
             18 in most cases.  The method used is heuristic
             search, and the talk will serve as an introduction
             to the field using Rubik's Cube as the example.
             Contrary to conventional wisdom, the analysis tends
             to indicate that the effect of heuristic functions 
             is to reduce the effective depth of search, rather 
             than the effective branching factor.
             
             A popular account of this work appeared in the Oct. 
             "Popular Science"; see "Computers and Software"

BIOGRAPHY:   Richard Korf is a Professor of Computer Science
             at the University of California, Los Angeles.
             He received his B.S. from M.I.T. in 1977, and
             his M.S. and Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon in 1980
             and 1983, respectively, all in Computer Science.
             His research is in the areas of problem solving,
             planning, and heuristic search in artificial
             intelligence.  He is the author of "Learning to 
             Solve Problems by Searching for Macro-Operators"
             (Pitman, 1985).  Dr. Korf is the recipient of a
             1985 IBM Faculty Development Award, a 1986 NSF
             Presidential Young Investigator Award, the first
             UCLA Computer Science Department Distinguished
             Teaching Award in 1989, and the UCLA Engineering
             School First Annual Student's Choice Award for
             Excellence in Teaching in 1996.  He was elected
             a Fellow of the AAAI (American Association for
             Artificial Intelligence) in 1994.

DINNER:      Social Hr at 6:30. Optional dinner at 7:00 ($19 
             with a reservation - call (310) 472-5936 by Sunday; 
             $21 with no reservation). To just attend the talk 
             (free) come at 8:00.
NEWSGROUPS:  Announced in comp.ai, la.seminars, ca.seminars.
HOMEPAGE:    http://server.eng.lmu.edu/tacart/tacart.html
CONTACTS:    L. Andrew Campbell campbell@aero.org (310) 336-8642 or
             Program Chair Barney Toma tomab@ecn.com (310) 323-8451.
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| L. Andrew Campbell     internet: campbell@aero.org       |
| M1-102 PO Box 92957    organization: The Aerospace Corp. |
| Los Angeles CA 90009   telephone: (310) 336-8642         |