Sir, – Reading recent letters to the paper on how a speed of 1.31 minutes to solve the crossword could possibly be attained intrigued me (Letters, June 12th). A simple method would be to purchase a printed copy of the paper, work out the crossword at leisure and then speed-type the answers from the already worked-out sheet.
Is that cheating? I don’t know, but I am sure that it will be beaten sooner or later by someone even smarter, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology students who, in June 2019, designed a robot to solve the Rubik’s cube in 0.38 seconds. If they can do it then I am sure that a programme can be designed to type in the answers to Simplex and Crosaire in a fraction of the existing record time.
I await developments. – Yours, etc,
BOBBY CARTY,
Templeogue,
Dublin 6W.