The Rubik's Cube! Solving A Puzzle
Here at The Rubik's Cube we'll try to make you an expert at working this puzzle, as well as introducing you to some of it's variations.
There are different variations of Rubik's Cubes with up to seven layers: the 2×2×2 (Pocket Cube and other variants), the standard 3×3×3 cube, the 4×4×4 (Rubik's Revenge, or Master Cube), and the 5×5×5 (Professor's Cube), the 6x6x6 (V-Cube 6), and 7x7x7 (V-Cube 7). Per Uwe Meffert, "The mold for the V-cube 9x9x9 is almost finished". Another variation is the Rubik's Mirror Blocks Cube which consists of differently shaped, all reflective pieces. This is solved the same way as the traditional Rubik's Cube, but based on piece shape rather than color. The Cube has inspired an entire category of similar puzzles, commonly referred to as twisty puzzles, which includes the cubes of different sizes mentioned above as well as various other geometric shapes. Some such shapes include the tetrahedron (Pyraminx), the octahedron (Skewb Diamond), the dodecahedron (Megaminx), and the icosahedron (Dogic). The classic puzzle has also spawned a series of novelties like the Rubik's Key Ring, the Rubik's Icon, the Rubik's Ice Cube, and the electronic Rubik's Revolution which advertises under the slogan, "An All New Cube That Anyone Can Do". The Key Ring acts as a miniature cube, the Ice Cube is just a thematic 2x2 cube, and the Icon is identical to an original cube, but its colors are in various shades of gray. The Revolution does not function like a regular cube, but is rather a series of elementary light recognition games. The 'Key Ring', 'Ice Cube', and 'Revolution' are all produced by the Winning Moves company.
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Popularity Of The Rubik's Cube
The Rubik's Cube, a mid-1970s invention of Erno Rubik of Hungary fascinated people around the globe and became one of the most popular games in America at the time. In just seven years worldwide sales surpassed thirty million units with a senior buyer at the New York FAO Schwarz toy emporium noting it had become "the world's most asked-for plaything". Some even argued it could lead to obsessive behavior. Pirated editions turned up in Taiwan, Hong Kong and some American cities. The cube spawned an array of sequels, spinoffs and literary works. As of January 2009 350 million cubes have sold worldwide making it the world's top-selling puzzle game. It earned a place as a permanent exhibit in New York's Museum of Modern Art and entered the Oxford English Dictionary after just two years. The Cube retains a cult following, with almost 40,000 entries on YouTube featuring tutorials and video clips of quick solutions. "Tired Of Trying!
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How to Solve a Rubik's Cube
How to Solve a Rubik's Cube (Easy Move Notation)
from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit
The Rubik's Cube can be very frustrating and may seem next to impossible to restore to its original configuration. However, once you know a few algorithms, it is very easy to solve.
The method described in this article is the layer method: we first solve one face of the cube (first layer), then the middle layer, and finally the last layer.
Steps
- Familiarize yourself with the Notations.
- Choose one face to start with. In the examples that will follow, the color for the first layer is white.
- First Layer
- Solve the cross : place in their correct position the four edge pieces that contain white. You should be able to do this by yourself without needing algorithms. All four edge pieces can be placed in a maximum of 8 moves (5 or 6 in general).
- Place the cross at the bottom.
- Solve the four corners of the first layer, one by one. At the end of this step, the first layer should be complete, with a solid color (in this case, white) at the bottom. You should also be able to place the corners without needing algorithms. To get you started, here is an example of one corner being solved:
- Your cube should now have the first layer complete and look like this (from the bottom side) :
- Solve the cross : place in their correct position the four edge pieces that contain white. You should be able to do this by yourself without needing algorithms. All four edge pieces can be placed in a maximum of 8 moves (5 or 6 in general).
- Middle Layer
- Place the four edges of the middle layer, one by one. Those edge pieces are the ones that do not contain yellow in our example. You need to know only one algorithm to solve the middle layer. The second algorithm is symmetrical to the first.
- If the edge piece is located in the last layer : (1.a) (1.b)symmetrical to (1.a)
- If the edge piece is in the middle layer but in the wrong place or with the wrong orientation, simply use the same algorithm to place any other edge piece in its position. Your edge piece will then be in the last layer, and you just have to use the algorithm again to position it properly in the middle layer.
- If the edge piece is located in the last layer : (1.a) (1.b)symmetrical to (1.a)
- Your cube should now have the first two layers complete and look like this (from the bottom side) :
- Place the four edges of the middle layer, one by one. Those edge pieces are the ones that do not contain yellow in our example. You need to know only one algorithm to solve the middle layer. The second algorithm is symmetrical to the first.
- Last layer
- Permute the corners. At this step, our goal is to place the corners of the last layer in their correct position, regardless of their orientation.
- Locate two adjacent corners that share a color other than the color of the top layer (other than yellow in our case).
- Turn the top layer until these two corners are on the correct color side, facing you. For instance, if the two adjacent corners both contain red, turn the top layer until those two corners are on the red side of the cube. Note that on the other side, the two corners of the top layer will both contain the color of that side as well (orange in our example).
- Determine whether the two corners of the front side are in their correct position, and swap them if needed. In our example, the right side is green, and the left side is blue. Therefore the front corner on the right must contain green, and the front corner on the left must contain blue. If it is not the case, you will need to swap those two corners with the following algorithm: Swap 1 and 2 : (2.a)
- Do the same with the two corners at the back. Turn the cube around to place the other side (orange) in front of you. Swap the two front corners if needed.
- As an alternative, if you notice that both the front pair and the back pair of corners need to be swapped, you can do it with only one algorithm (note the huge similarity with the previous algorithm): Swap 1 and 3 : (2.b)
- Locate two adjacent corners that share a color other than the color of the top layer (other than yellow in our case).
- Orient the corners. Locate each top color facelet of the corners (yellow in our case). You need to know only one algorithm to orient the corners : (3.a) The algorithm will rotate 3 corners on themselves at once (from the side to the top). The blue arrows show which 3 corners you are turning, and in which direction (clockwise). If the yellow stickers are the way shown on the pictures and you perform the algorithm once, you should end up with the four yellow stickers on top : It is also convenient to use the symmetrical algorithm (here the red arrows are counter-clockwise turns): Symmetrical to (3.a) (3.b) Note : performing twice one of these algorithms is equivalent to performing the other.In some cases, you will need to perform the algorithm more than once :
- 2 correctly oriented corners : = = + = = + = = +
- no correctly oriented corner : = = + = = + Or more generally, apply (3.a) in those cases : Two correctly oriented corners : No correctly oriented corner :
- 2 correctly oriented corners : = = + = = + = = +
- Permute the edges. You will need to know only one algorithm for this step. Check whether one or several edges are already in the correct position (the orientation does not matter at this point).
- If all the edges are in their correct positions, you are done for this step.
- If one edge only is correctly positioned, use the following algorithm : (4.a) or its symmetrical : Symmetrical to (4.a) (4.b) Note : performing twice one of these algorithms is equivalent to performing the other.
- If all four edges are incorrectly positioned, perform one of the two algorithms once from any side. You will then have only one edge correctly positioned.
- If all the edges are in their correct positions, you are done for this step.
- Orient the edges. You will need to know two algorithms for that last step : Dedmore "H" Pattern (5) Dedmore "Fish" Pattern (6) Note the DOWN, LEFT, UP, RIGHT, sequence to most of the Dedmore "H" and "Fish" algorithms.Note you really have only one algorithm to remember since : (6) = + (5) + If all four edges are flipped, perform the "H" pattern algorithm from any side, and you will have to perform that algorithm one more time to solve the cube.
- Permute the corners. At this step, our goal is to place the corners of the last layer in their correct position, regardless of their orientation.
- Congratulations! Your cube should now be solved.
Tips
- Know the colors of your cube. You must know which color is opposite which, and the order of the colors around each face. For instance, if white is on top and red in front, then you must know that blue is on the right, orange in the back, green on the left and yellow at the bottom.
- For the color to start with, you can either always start with the same color to help you with knowing where each color goes, or try to be efficient by choosing a color for which it is easier to solve the cross.
- Practice! Spend some time with your cube to learn how to move pieces around. This is especially important when you are learning to solve the first layer.
- To solve the cross efficiently, first locate all four edges and try to think ahead about how to move them into position without actually doing it. With practice and experience, this will teach you ways to solve it in fewer moves. And in a competition, participants are given 15 seconds to inspect their cube before the timer starts.
- Try to figure out how the algorithms work. While executing the algorithm, try to follow key pieces around to see where they go. Try to find pattern in the algorithms. For instance :
- In the algorithms (2.a) and (2.b) used to permute corners of the last/top layer, you execute 4 moves (at the end of which all first/bottom layer and middle layer cubies are back in the first/bottom and middle layers), then turn the upper layer, and then execute the reverse of the first four moves. therefore this algorithm does not affect the first/bottom and middle layers.
- For the algorithms (4.a) and (4.b), note you are turning the top layer in the same direction that you need to turn the three edges.
- For the algorithm (5), Dedmore "H" Pattern, a way to remember the algorithm is to follow the path of the flipped edge on the top right and the pair of corners around it for the first half of the algorithm. And then for the other half of the algorithm, follow the other flipped edge and pair of corners. You'll notice that you perform 5 moves (7 moves if counting half turns as 2 moves), then half turn the top layer, then reverse those first five moves, and finally half turn the top layer again.
- In the algorithms (2.a) and (2.b) used to permute corners of the last/top layer, you execute 4 moves (at the end of which all first/bottom layer and middle layer cubies are back in the first/bottom and middle layers), then turn the upper layer, and then execute the reverse of the first four moves. therefore this algorithm does not affect the first/bottom and middle layers.
- Progress further. Once you know all the algorithms, you may want to find faster ways to solve the Rubik's:
- Solve the first layer corner along with its middle layer edge in one move.[1]
- Learn algorithms to orient the last layer corners in the five cases where two (3.a/b) algorithms are necessary.
- Learn algorithms to permute the last layer edges in the two cases where no edge
- Solve the first layer corner along with its middle layer edge in one move.[1]
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What Wikipedia Says About The Rubik's Cube
Category: File - :Cubo rubik 2.jpg|right|thumb|A classic Rubik's Cube, solved.
Category: File - :Rubik's cube.svg|right|thumb|A classic Rubik's Cube, scrambled.
The 'Rubiks Cube' is a 3-D mechanical puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ern? Rubik.
Originally called the "Magic Cube",[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1112396/Driven-mad-Rubiks-nut-weeps-solving-cube--26-years-trying.html Driven mad' Rubik's nut weeps on solving cube... after 26 years of trying], Daily Mail Reporter, January 12, 2009. the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toys in 1980 and won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that year. As of January 2009, 350 million cubes have sold worldwide making it the world's top-selling puzzle game.Marshall, Ray. Squaring up to the Rubchallenge. icNewcastle. Retrieved August 15, 2005. It is widely considered to be the world's best-selling toy.
In a classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces is covered by 9 stickers, among six solid colours (traditionally white, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow). A pivot mechanism enables each face to turn independently, thus mixing up the colours. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be a solid colour.
Similar puzzles have now been produced with various numbers of stickers, not all of them by Rubik. The original 3×3×3 version celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2005.
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- Official Rubik's website
- Find Rubik's Cube solutions, join the community.
- Beginner Solution to the Rubik's Cube
- There are many different methods for solving the Rubik's cube. They can be divided into two broad categories: layer methods and corners first methods.
- The Revolution
- Six addictive games in one!
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Much of the information used here has been researched from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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