Portal:Rubik's Cube
Portal maintenance status: (October 2018)
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Introduction
Rubik's Cube is a 3-D combination puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube, the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980 via businessman Tibor Laczi and Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer, and won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that year. , 350 million cubes had been sold worldwide making it the world's top-selling puzzle game. It is widely considered to be the world's best-selling toy.
On the original classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces was covered by nine stickers, each of one of six solid colours: white, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow. The current version of the cube has been updated to coloured plastic panels instead, which prevents peeling and fading. In currently sold models, white is opposite yellow, blue is opposite green, and orange is opposite red, and the red, white and blue are arranged in that order in a clockwise arrangement. On early cubes, the position of the colours varied from cube to cube. An internal pivot mechanism enables each face to turn independently, thus mixing up the colours. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be returned to have only one colour. Similar puzzles have now been produced with various numbers of sides, dimensions, and stickers, not all of them by Rubik.
Selected general articles
The Square-1, also known as Back to Square One and Cube 21, is a puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube. Its distinguishing feature among the numerous Rubik's Cube variants is that it can change shape as it is twisted, due to the way it is cut, thus adding an extra level of challenge and difficulty. The Super Square One and Square Two puzzles have been recently introduced. The Super Square One has two additional layers that can be scrambled and solved independently of the rest of the puzzle, and the Square Two has extra cuts made to the top and bottom layer, making the edge and corner wedges the same size. Read more...
Tyson Mao (born May 8, 1984, in San Francisco, California) is an American Rubik's Cube speedsolver. He is a co-founder and a former board member of the World Cube Association, an organization that holds competitive events for the Rubik's Cube. In 2005, he set the world record for 3x3x3 blindfolded. In 2006, he appeared on the CW Television Network's "Beauty and the Geek" as one of the participants of the second incarnation of the reality television show. Read more...- Max Park is an American Rubik's cube speedsolver who formerly held the world record for average of five 3x3x3 solves (excluding fastest and slowest), 6.39 seconds, set on 23 April 2017 at OCSEF Open 2017. Prior to this, the record had been held by Feliks Zemdegs of Australia, who had improved it 9 times over 7 years from 9.21 seconds on 30 January 2010 to 6.45 seconds. Park is the only cuber other than Zemdegs to have set the record since 27 September 2009.
Park holds the world records for single and average of five 4x4x4 solves: 18.42 seconds and 21.13 seconds, respectively, both set on 27 May 2018 at SacCubing IV 2018. Read more...
The Pyraminx Crystal is a dodecahedral puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube and the Megaminx. It is manufactured by Uwe Mèffert and has been sold in his puzzle shop since 2008.
The puzzle was originally called the Brilic, and was first made in 2006 by Aleh Hladzilin, a member of the Twisty Puzzles Forum. Read more...
The Floppy Cube is a cuboidal twisty puzzle in the style of the Rubik's Cube. It was originally invented by Katsuhiko Okamoto and mass-produced by Gentosha Toys, although several other companies have since mass-produced it as well. Read more...
The Dogic (/ˈdɒdʒɪk/) is an icosahedron-shaped puzzle like the Rubik's Cube. The 5 triangles meeting at its tips may be rotated, or 5 entire faces (including the triangles) around the tip may be rotated. It has a total of 80 movable pieces to rearrange, compared to the 20 pieces in the Rubik's Cube. Read more...
A Tuttminx (/ˈtʊtmɪŋks/ or /ˈtʌtmɪŋks/) is a Rubik's Cube-like twisty puzzle, in the shape of a truncated icosahedron. It was invented by Lee Tutt in 2005. It has a total of 150 movable pieces to rearrange, compared to 20 movable pieces of the Rubik’s Cube. Read more...
Kevin Hays (born 12 May 1994) is an American Rubik's Cube speedsolver. Recognized as an expert at solving big cubes (5x5, 6x6 and 7x7), he has won 6 world championship titles and set 20 world records across the three events. He has also set 47 North American records and won 21 US National titles. Read more...
Erik Akkersdijk (born 7 October 1989 in Enschede, The Netherlands) is a Dutch Rubik's Cube speedsolver.
In 2008, he set several Rubik's Cube world records. Read more...
The Pyraminx Duo (originally known as Rob's Pyraminx) is a tetrahedral twisty puzzle in the style of the Rubik's Cube. It was suggested by Rob Stegmann, invented by Oskar van Deventer, and has now been mass-produced by Meffert's. Read more...- Eric Limeback (born c. 1992) is a Canadian speedcuber. He is known for his 11/11 3x3x3 multiblindfold Canadian record solve, as well as his standard 3x3x3 blindfolded solving. Limeback was the first Canadian to record a sub-30 second official 3x3x3 blindfolded solve.
Limeback began solving the Rubik's Cube in 9th grade. He graduated from the Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute in 2010.
Limeback's official YouTube channel has tutorials on how to solve a Rubik's Cube blindfolded. He formerly held the Guinness World Record for the most 3x3x3 cubes solved in 24 hours, 5800, set from 3–4 October 2013 at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. Read more... - Shotaro Makisumi (Japanese: Makisumi Shōtarō; commonly known as "Macky", born March 21, 1990 in Ube, Yamaguchi, Japan), is best known for setting several world records for speedcubing, or quickly solving the Rubik's Cube.
Macky lived in Arcadia, California, and graduated in the class of 2008 from Polytechnic School in Pasadena, California. In 2012, he graduated from Princeton University, where he majored in mathematics. He completed his Ph.D. at Stanford University in 2017, and is now a Ritt Assistant Professor of mathematics at Columbia University. He has held seven world records with the World Cube Association. Read more...
Rubik's Magic, like Rubik's Cube, is a mechanical puzzle invented by Ernő Rubik and first manufactured by Matchbox in the mid-1980s.
The puzzle consists of eight black square tiles (changed to red squares with goldish rings in 1997) arranged in a 2 × 4 rectangle; diagonal grooves on the tiles hold wires that connect them, allowing them to be folded onto each other and unfolded again in two perpendicular directions (assuming that no other connections restrict the movement) in a manner similar to a Jacob's Ladder toy. The front side of the puzzle shows, in the initial state, three separate, rainbow-coloured rings; the back side consists of a scrambled picture of three interconnected rings. The goal of the game is to fold the puzzle into a heart-like shape and unscramble the picture on the back side, thus interconnecting the rings. Read more...
WOWCube is a game console or an electronic puzzle shaped as 2x2x2 Rubik's Cube. Serving as an example of a tangible user interface,
it consists of eight identical elements working as a whole. It allows launching specially designed games.
The concept of the puzzle was proposed by Savva Osipov in 2016. The first prototype based on Arduino was developed in 2017. The Russian patent was obtained by Ilya and Savva Osipov in 2017. An early prototype was presented on June 8, 2017 at a scientific conference CALL in UC Berkeley, and in May 2018, the puzzle was presented to the general public at the Maker Faire exhibition in Santa Clara, California. Read more...- Thistlethwaite also came up with a famous solution to the Rubik's Cube. The way the algorithm works is by restricting the positions of the cubes into groups of cube positions that can be solved using a certain set of moves. The groups are:
- G0 = <L,R,F,B,U,D>
:This group contains all possible positions of the Rubik's Cube.- G1 = <L,R,F,B,U2,D2>
:This group contains all positions that can be reached (from the solved state) with quarter turns of the left, right, front and back sides of the Rubik's Cube, but only double turns of the up and down sides.- G2 = <L,R,F2,B2,U2,D2>
:In this group, the positions are restricted to ones that can be reached with only double turns of the front, back, up and down faces and quarter turns of the left and right faces.- G3 = <L2,R2,F2,B2,U2,D2>
:Positions in this group can be solved using only double turns on all sides.- G4 = {I}:The final group contains only one position, the solved state of the cube.
The cube is solved by moving from group to group, using only moves in the current group, for example, a scrambled cube likely lies in group G0. A look up table of possible permutations is used that uses quarter turns of all faces to get the cube into group G1. Once in group G1, quarter turns of the up and down faces are disallowed in the sequences of the look-up tables, and the tables are used to get to group G2, and so on, until the cube is solved. Read more...
The Professor's Cube is a combination puzzle, a 5×5×5 version of the Rubik's Cube. It has qualities in common with both the original 3×3×3 Rubik's Cube and the 4×4×4 Rubik's Revenge, and knowing how to solve either can help when working on the 5×5×5 cube. Read more...- God's algorithm is a notion originating in discussions of ways to solve the Rubik's Cube puzzle, but which can also be applied to other combinatorial puzzles and mathematical games. It refers to any algorithm which produces a solution having the fewest possible moves, the idea being that an omniscient being would know an optimal step from any given configuration. Read more...
The Nine-Colour Cube (see below for other names) is a cubic twisty puzzle. It was invented in 2005 by Milan Vodicka and mass-produced by Meffert's seven years later. Mechanically, the puzzle is identical to the Rubik's Cube; however, unlike the Rubik's Cube, which only has 6 different colours, the Nine-Colour Cube has 9 colours, with the individual pieces having one colour each. Read more...- Bob Burton (born Robert Russell Burton Jr.; February 21, 1985) is an American speedcuber, most famous for competing in and organizing competitions all over the world and his former world records on the Rubik's Magic and Rubik's Master Magic. Read more...
Ernő Rubik (Hungarian: [ˈrubik ˈɛrnøː]; born 13 July 1944) is a Hungarian inventor, architect and professor of architecture. He is best known for the invention of mechanical puzzles including Rubik's Cube (1974), Rubik's Magic, Rubik's Magic: Master Edition, and Rubik's Snake.
While Rubik became famous for inventing the Rubik's Cube and his other puzzles, much of his recent work involves the promotion of science in education. Rubik is involved with several organizations such as Beyond Rubik's Cube, the Rubik Learning Initiative and the Judit Polgar Foundation all of whose aim is to engage students in science, mathematics, and problem solving at a young age. Read more...
The Skewb Ultimate, originally marketed as Pyraminx Ball is a twelve-sided puzzle derivation of the Skewb, produced by famous toy-maker Uwe Meffert. Most versions of this puzzle are sold with six different colors of stickers attached, with opposite sides of the puzzle having the same color; however, some early versions of the puzzle have a full set of 12 colors. Read more...
Mats Valk (born 4 May 1996) is a Dutch Rubik's Cube speedsolver. He broke the Rubik's cube single solve world record twice with times of 5.55 seconds in 2013 and 4.74 seconds in 2016. He won the Rubik's Cube European Championship in 2018 and was runner-up for 3x3x3 at the Rubik's Cube World Championships in 2013 and 2015 and won the European Championship 2018. Read more...
Snake in a ball solution as initially shipped
A Rubik's Snake (also Rubik's Twist, Rubik's Transformable Snake, Rubik’s Snake Puzzle) is a toy with 24 wedges that are right isosceles triangular prisms. The wedges are connected by spring bolts, so that they can be twisted, but not separated. By being twisted, the Rubik's Snake can be made to resemble a wide variety of objects, animals, or geometric shapes. Its "ball" shape in its packaging is a non-uniform concave rhombicuboctahedron.
The snake was invented by Ernő Rubik, better known as the inventor of the Rubik's Cube. Read more...
The superflip or 12-flip is a Rubik's Cube configuration in which all 20 of the movable subcubes (or "cubies") are in the correct permutation, and the eight corners are correctly oriented, but all twelve of the edges are oriented incorrectly ("flipped"). It has been shown that the shortest path between a solved cube and the Superflip position requires 20 moves under the usual half-turn metric (HTM, in which rotating a face 180° counts as a single move), and that no position requires more (although there are many other positions that also require 20 moves).
Under the more restrictive quarter-turn metric (QTM), only 90° face turns are allowed, so 180° turns count as two "moves". In those terms, the Superflip requires 24 moves, and is not maximally distant from the solved state. Instead, when Superflip is composed with the "four-dot" or "four-spot" position, in which four faces have their centers exchanged with the centers on the opposite face, the resulting position may be unique in requiring 26 moves under QTM. Read more...
The Pyraminx (/ˈpɪrəmɪŋks/) is a regular tetrahedron puzzle in the style of Rubik's Cube. It was made and patented by Uwe Mèffert after the original 3 layered Rubik's Cube by Erno Rubik, and introduced by Tomy Toys of Japan (then the 3rd largest toy company in the world) in 1981. Read more...
David Breyer Singmaster (born 1939, USA) is a retired professor of mathematics at London South Bank University, England, UK. A self-described metagrobologist, he has a huge personal collection of mechanical puzzles and books of brain teasers. He is most famous for being an early adopter and enthusiastic promoter of the Rubik's Cube. His Notes on Rubik's "Magic Cube" which he began compiling in 1979 provided the first mathematical analysis of the Cube as well as providing one of the first published solutions. The book contained his cube notation which allowed the recording of Rubik's Cube moves, and which quickly became the standard.
He is both a puzzle historian and a composer of puzzles, and many of his puzzles have been published in newspapers and magazines. In combinatorial number theory, Singmaster's conjecture states that there is an upper bound on the number of times a number other than 1 can appear in Pascal's triangle. Read more...
The V-Cube 6 is a 6×6×6 version of Rubik's Cube. The first mass-produced 6×6×6 was invented by Panagiotis Verdes and is produced by the Greek company Verdes Innovations SA. Other such puzzles have since been introduced by a number of Chinese companies, some of which have mechanisms which improve on the original. Unlike the original puzzle (but like the 4×4×4 cube), it has no fixed facets: the center facets (16 per face) are free to move to different positions.
Methods for solving the 3×3×3 cube work for the edges and corners of the 6×6×6 cube, as long as one has correctly identified the relative positions of the colors — since the center facets can no longer be used for identification. Read more...- Panagiotis Verdes is the Greek inventor of the 6x6x6, 7x7x7, 8x8x8 and 9x9x9 Twisty Puzzles. He has also worked on new designs of every Twisty Puzzle from 2x2x2 to 11x11x11. Read more...
The Impossiball is a rounded icosahedral puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube. It has a total of 20 movable pieces to rearrange, same as the Rubik's Cube, but all of the Impossiball's pieces are corners, like the Pocket Cube. Read more...- Lucas Etter is an American speedcuber who previously held the world record for fastest single Rubik's Cube solve, 4.90 seconds, set at River Hill Fall 2015 on 21 November 2015 when he was 14. Etter’s solve made him the first person to break the five second barrier in official competition.. Etter is currently ranked 5th in the world for 3x3x3 average of five solves.
Etter formerly holds the world record for 2x2x2 average of five solves (excluding fastest and slowest). Etter set the record of 1.51 seconds at Music City 2015 on 12 September 2015. Read more...
The Void Cube is a 3-D mechanical puzzle similar to a Rubik's Cube, with the notable difference being that the center pieces are missing, which causes the puzzle to resemble a level 1 Menger sponge. The core used on the Rubik's Cube is also absent, creating holes straight through the cube on all three axes. Due to the restricted volume of the puzzle it employs an entirely different structural mechanism from a regular Rubik's Cube, though the possible moves are the same. The Void Cube was invented by Katsuhiko Okamoto. Gentosha Education, in Japan, holds the license to manufacture Void Cubes. Read more...
The Pocket Cube (also known as the Mini Cube) is the 2×2×2 equivalent of a Rubik's Cube. The cube consists of 8 pieces, all corners. Read more...
Rubik's Clock is a mechanical puzzle invented and patented by Christopher C. Wiggs and Christopher J. Taylor. The Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik bought the patent from them to market the product under his name. It was first marketed in 1988.
Rubik's Clock is a two-sided puzzle, each side presenting nine clocks to the puzzler. There are four wheels, one at each corner of the puzzle, each allowing the corresponding corner clock to be rotated directly. (The corner clocks, unlike the other clocks, rotate on both sides of the puzzle simultaneously and can never be operated independently. Thus the puzzle contains only 14 independent clocks.) Read more...
Anthony Michael Brooks is an American speed cubing champion. He specializes in the 2x2 cube and classic 3x3 cube, and has been officially ranked in the top five in the world in both categories as recognized by the World Cube Association. Since learning to solve the cube in March 2008, Brooks has become known for developing advanced speedsolving methods as well as frequently promoting speedcubing in the media. While working as the Liberty Science Center's Speedcuber-in-Residence, Brooks set the Guinness World Record for most Rubik's Cubes solved underwater in a single breath, and also led the team that currently holds the world record for solving the Groovik's Cube, the world's largest functioning Rubik's Cube. In July 2017, Brooks was featured on the debut season of FOX's Superhuman TV show. Read more...- Optimal solutions for Rubik's Cube refer to solutions that are the shortest. There are two common ways to measure the length of a solution. The first is to count the number of quarter turns. The second is to count the number of outer-layer twists, called "face turns". A move to turn an outer layer two quarter (90°) turns in the same direction would be counted as two moves in the quarter turn metric (QTM), but as one turn in the face metric (FTM, or HTM "Half Turn Metric", or OBTM "Outer Block Turn Metric").
The maximum number of face turns needed to solve any instance of the Rubik's Cube is 20, and the maximum number of quarter turns is 26. These numbers are also the diameters of the corresponding Cayley graphs of the Rubik's Cube group. In STM (slice turn metric) it's unknown. Read more...
The Megaminx or Mégaminx (/ˈmɛɡəmɪŋks/, /ˈmeɪ-/) is a dodecahedron-shaped puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube. It has a total of 50 movable pieces to rearrange, compared to the 20 movable pieces of the Rubik's Cube. Read more...
The V-Cube 7 is a combination puzzle in the form of a 7×7×7 cube. The first mass-produced 7×7×7 was invented by Panagiotis Verdes and is produced by the Greek company Verdes Innovations SA. Other such puzzles have since been introduced by a number of Chinese companies, some of which have mechanisms which improve on the original. Like the 5×5×5, the V-Cube 7 has both fixed and movable center facets. Read more...
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Selected images
Magic Cube 4D, a 4×4×4×4 virtual puzzle
Mountaineer solving Rubik's Cube during 1982 expedition in Pamir Mountains to peak Tartu Ülikool 350
Variations of Rubik's Cubes. Top row: V-Cube 7, Professor's Cube, V-Cube 6. Bottom row: Rubik's Revenge, original Rubik's Cube, Pocket Cube. Clicking on a cube in the picture will redirect to the respective cube's page. (Note:scrambled states)
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