Introducing and a little History…

The cube was invented in 1974 by a Hungarian professor, Ernő Rubik. Since 1974 only few people could solve it without using any pre-written algorithms. Some of these “big brains” spread the knowledge on Internet and this knowledge became memorizing algorithms. I want to teach you one of these ways of solving. But before doing this here are the most important basics:

The parts of Rubik’s cube:

Image by Dark Antirex

Three facts that every user must know:

1. The centerpiece is a fix point of cube. You can’t change its location either by turning sides or moving the second line*. So the centerpiece defines the color of each side.

2. Original colours of cube: white, green, blue, red, orange, yellow. If upside is white, bottom side is blue, if it’s red the bottom side is orange and lastly if green the bottom is yellow. There are a lot of “fake” cubes without matching colours.

3. Since its investing toy shops sold 350,000,000 (350 million) cubes around the world. The most in the USA and in Japan.

*It’s relative, question of viewpoint that if first and third line are being moved or you move the second line with the centerpiece.

Steps of solving

First you have to “change” all squares to same color on one side. To do this most people first make a cross in the middle. I have a faster way but you can’t do that with covered eyes . Choose the colour which you would like to solve. As you can see in the first point above, you should see the centerpiece. In my case the colour will be green. The chosen colour should be upside to follow the moves of different colours easier. Search an edge-cube that contains green. As next step turn a nearby side to move the chosen green edge next to the centerpiece in same colour. Turn the second line (the line between upside and bottom side) left or right depending on the centerpieces to match their colours with the second color on edge. After doing this four times (four additional edge needed to complete the cross) you will get the cross and the centerpieces will match too. Orientating the corners is easy. You must just manage the bottom side – search green corner-cube-pieces and move them to bottom the third line. Move the upside to front and turn the first and second line left. Turn back the front to upside and paste the green piece from B3 to U3. B3 means third line of bottom side, U3 is obviously third line of upside by following these new rules.

Turn the whole cube – be the green side upside. The next step is making the whole second line right. (Same side- same colour.) Search same coloured edge pieces and move them under the centerpiece. After doing this follow this algorithm if the green is still upside: Bottom side – Left, Right side – Down, Bottom side – Right, Right side – Up, Bottom side – Right, turn the front side clockwise, Bottom side – Left, Front side- anticlockwise. Do this each edges until you reach that The whole upside and second line will be completed.

At bottom side there is also a cross needed, to do this follow this algorithm before doing any further: [Wait! The "bottom side" now will be "right side"] Bottom side – Right, Left and Right side – Up, do this 2 events altogether four times. Turn front side up (this will became upside and bottom side will be front). Do these events four times: Bottom side – Left, Left and Right side – Down. Congratulations! You completed the whole cross. Permuting corners is a little different but this can be explained with algorithms too. If 3 or 4 don’t match do this: Now the uncompleted (originally bottom) side will be upside. Left and Right side – Down twice, Upside – Left, Left and Right side – Down once, Upside – Left twice, Left and Right side – Up, Upside – Left, Left and Right side – Up twice. And you successfully completed the whole cube.

Thank you for reading, written by Dark A., 2009.