Jessica Fridrich facts for kids

Jessica Fridrich is a smart professor at Binghamton University. She is an expert in hiding information inside digital pictures. She is also very famous for helping to make the CFOP method popular. This method is one of the most common ways to solve a Rubik's Cube very quickly. Solving a Rubik's Cube fast is called speedcubing.

Many of the fastest speedcubers today use a method based on Jessica Fridrich's ideas. This method is often called CFOP. CFOP stands for Cross, First 2 Layers, Orientation of the Last Layer, and Permutation of the Last Layer. It's a step-by-step way to solve the cube.

First, you make a "cross" shape on one side of the cube. This cross uses the center piece and four edge pieces. Next, you solve the first layer's corner pieces and the second layer's edge pieces at the same time. You put them into their correct spots in pairs. Finally, you solve the last layer. You do this by first getting all the yellow pieces facing up (Orientation). Then, you move the last layer's pieces into their correct places (Permutation).

Speedcubing Achievements

Jessica Fridrich first saw a Rubik's Cube when she was 16 years old, in March 1981. It was hard to buy these cubes in her home country, communist Czechoslovakia, back then. But she got one in July when a French family visited.

After getting her cube, Jessica learned how to solve it layer by layer from a Czech book. By September, she could solve the cube in about one minute. That's pretty fast!

In May 1982, a national championship for Rubik's Cube solving took place. By then, Jessica could solve the cube in about 25 seconds. She won the first two rounds of the competition. In the second round, she solved the cube in just 23.55 seconds! This amazing time helped her win the top prize. Later that year, she also competed in the Rubik's Cube World Championship in Budapest. She finished 10th there, with her best time being 29.11 seconds.

Her Career and Work

Jessica Fridrich is a professor at Binghamton University. She teaches in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Her special work involves digital watermarking and forensics. This means she studies ways to hide information in digital images and how to find out if images have been changed.

She earned her first degree in applied mathematics in 1987. Later, in 1995, she received her PhD in systems science from Binghamton University. In 2018, Jessica Fridrich was chosen as a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. This is a special honor for people who create new and important inventions.

See also

In Spanish: Jessica Fridrich para niños