Jessica Fridrich facts for kids

Jessica Fridrich is a famous professor at Binghamton University. She is an expert in how to hide information in digital imagery, like pictures. But she is also super well-known for something else: helping to make the CFOP method popular. This method is one of the most used ways to solve the Rubik's Cube really fast! Solving a Rubik's Cube quickly is called speedcubing.

Jessica Fridrich is seen as one of the first people to make speedcubing popular, along with Lars Petrus. Almost all of the fastest speedcubers today use methods based on hers. The CFOP method helps you solve the cube layer by layer. CFOP stands for Cross, First 2 Layers, Orientation of the Last Layer, and Permutation of the Last Layer.

How to Solve a Rubik's Cube Fast

The CFOP method teaches you to solve the Rubik's Cube in four main steps:

• Cross: First, you make a "cross" shape on one side of the cube. This means getting the center piece and four edge pieces in the correct spots on the first layer.
• First 2 Layers (F2L): 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 places in pairs.
• Orientation of the Last Layer (OLL): After that, you work on the very last layer. You make sure all the yellow pieces on the top are facing upwards.
• Permutation of the Last Layer (PLL): Finally, you move the pieces on the last layer into their correct spots. You use special moves, called algorithms, to do this.

Speedcubing Adventures

Jessica Fridrich first saw a Rubik's Cube when she was 16 years old, in March 1981. Back then, it was hard to buy these cubes in communist Czechoslovakia. But in July, a family visiting from France brought one, and Jessica got her own cube!

After getting her cube, Jessica started learning a layer-by-layer way to solve it from a Czech book. By September, she was already solving the cube in about 1 minute on average. That's pretty fast!

In May 1982, the national championship for Rubik's Cube solving happened. Jessica was solving the cube in about 25 seconds by then. Five cubers, including Mirek Goljan, made it to the finals. Jessica won the first two rounds! Mirek Goljan won the third and final round. Jessica's time of 23.55 seconds in the second round helped her win the whole competition. Later that year, she also competed in the Rubik's Cube World Championship in Budapest. She finished 10th with her best time of 29.11 seconds.

Her Work as a Professor

Jessica Fridrich is a professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Binghamton University. She focuses on digital watermarking and forensics. This means she studies how to put hidden information into digital things, like photos, and how to find out if digital evidence has been changed.

She earned her first degree in applied mathematics from the Czech Technical University in Prague in 1987. Then, she got her PhD in systems science from Binghamton University in 1995. In 2018, Jessica Fridrich was chosen as a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. This is a big honor for inventors!

See also

In Spanish: Jessica Fridrich para niños