i hate rubiks cubes

[lightdarkness]

Alright, so after cenright did his cube in 55 seconds, i thought i shoulld get a cube, but i didnt
then 87x posted the guy in 18 seconds, then im like "i gotta get a cube"
then last night cenright posted the "perfessor" cube, i said, "I GOTTA GET A CUBE" so this morning i went and bought one, and its HELLA HARD!!! so heres my question, and not just directed at cenright
what is the BEST way for an absolute BEGINNER to learn how to solve a cube, ive looked at probly 10 and i dont understand many. im just sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo lost

[Anticrombie0909]

Keep twisting it. Solving one in, you know, 55 seconds or whatever is a LOT HARDER than it looks, I'd imagine...it's just like DDR, innit? Looks easy, yet is hard as hell. I've solved a rubik's cube maybe once...I don't have the patience or the willpower to work on it endlessly, and while I start off with a strategy in the beginning in the end I just end up turning it aimlessly.

[linus]

A certain set of steps is called an algorithm. Algorithms change a certain amount of pieces while leaving others inplace. These algorithms can be anywhere from 3 steps to 20 steps (there is no EFFICIENT Algorithm that is more than 20 steps)

You then utilize the algorithms, adjusting them for the certain case. Sometimes you need to move a piece left instead of right...
Sometimes 3 pieces are swapped...
Sometimes there are 0 or 2 pieces up instead of all 4...
Sometimes a piece needs to be oriented the other way...

There are 4 to 8 (sometimes up to 16) different ways you can do each algorithm correctly. You just have to change which way hold it and orient it.

Also, the Red-White piece might have caught your eye as bieng closer to finished than the Green-White piece. This would have you start the cube differently. There are over 60 billion different ways the cube can look, so you will never see every combination on the cube. There is always a little variation.

This is just the basics. People get into advanced moves where they can do a 14 move Algorithm and only flip 2 pieces. There are over 10,000 different Algorithms out there, so how one person solves the cube might be completely unique to everyone elses. People also make pretty patterns. (I have made some myself)



Mind Blowing idea: No cube ever needs to take more than 20 moves to solve, no matter how scrambled it is.


This is Cenright's overview of the Rubiks Cube.



Quote from freak83's forum, by cenright

[lightdarkness]

thx
and on the package it says 43 quintillion which is 43 million million million
and i am still nowhere near solving

[Moogy]

43,000,000,000,000,000,000 of what, LD?

[linus]

43,000,000,000,000,000,000 solutions?

[lightdarkness]

43,000,000,000,000,000,000 solutions?

the number of different combonations that the cube can look like!

[Kilgamayan]

Where's that video of the guy who does it in 44.98 seconds with one hand?

[Freak83]

Here, Cenright posted this a while back, scroll to the bottom.

[lightdarkness]

wanna know my best time?
well, i dont know cause im still going, aprox 2 hrs now

[Cenright]

Thanks for using my quotes guys. I didn't think that cube overview would be very useful, but I guess I was wrong. And yes, it is 43 quintillion possibilities. I couldn't remember so I just used a fairly large number while still being conservative.

[Feuergeist]

I can do a rubiks cube fast, unless my knife gets stuck XD