How many LEGO combinations can be made with 6 standard bricks?

“How many ways can you put together six of these bricks?” This question, asked and answered in 1958 with an estimate of 103 million, has only recently been answered correctly, thanks to math professor Soren Eilers and a computer program that he created to do the calculations. In this clip from A LEGO Brickumentary, available on Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, and in theaters, we learn the real number: 915,104,765 combinations.

But what about seven standard bricks? Eight? Nine? Ten? Eilers explains why that’s an exponential challenge.

There are also a few more clips from the documentary online:

And if you like that, don’t miss James May’s Toy Stories: How to build a huge LEGO house and Inside the LEGO Factory. Plus, watch more LEGO videos and more math videos.

via @Ri_Science.