{"id":32045,"date":"2019-06-23T19:36:27","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T00:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=32045"},"modified":"2026-07-02T16:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T21:29:09","slug":"learning-the-solve-the-cube","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=32045","title":{"rendered":"Learning to Solve the Cube"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I keep a Rubik’s Cube on my desk at the office. It’s something I can fiddle with when I’m thinking. Sometimes I’ll even take it into meetings. A couple of turns here, a couple of turns there, and if I mess it up, there’s an online solution — You Can Do the Rubik’s Cube<\/a><\/em> — that I can turn to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solving the Rubik’s Cube was a trick I could never master<\/a>. I think I was in fourth or fifth grade (so, 1982-ish) when Rubik’s Cubes were huge<\/em>, and the thing I wanted most in the world one Christmas was a solution book for the cube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santa Claus, sadly, was not forthcoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I read You Can Do the Rubik’s Cube<\/em> last year, I understood where I’d gone wrong years before. Solving one face of the cube? Easy. Where to go from there? Not a clue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have vague memories that I thought the next step, after solving one face, was to solve an adjacent face. I have literally no idea why<\/em> I thought this. At the age of 9 or 10, that probably made intuitive sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The solution guide went in a different direction — solve it in layers. Solve one face and its adjacent layer, then solve the middle layer, then solve the final layer. And if I could memorize the turning patterns used to solve the middle layer and the final layer, then I would be able to solve a Rubik’s Cube without consulting You Can Do the Rubik’s Cube<\/em>. But some of these patterns were complicated, and I despaired of ever learning them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friday afternoon, idly thinking at my desk, I scrambled my cube and began solving the white face. Done, I wondered if I could solve the middle layer without consulting the guide. With some trial and error, I discovered I could. Then I realized that if I sat down and practiced the patterns, not worrying about solving the cube, just practicing the patterns, I could<\/em> learn these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I printed off the instructions from You Can Do the Rubik’s Cube<\/em> as well as a slightly different solution<\/a>. The two methods are basically the same until you get to the final layer, whereupon they different in their approaches. YCDtRC<\/em> has you solve the face then position the edges and corners correctly, while the other solution has you solve the center edge pieces then position the corners and orient them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saturday morning, then, a mug of coffee in hand, I sat in my Adirondack chair outside and set to work memorizing patterns. I’d write the turn notation down on an index card and run through it about twenty-five times before going on to the next. Then I’d scramble the cube and start putting the steps together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frankly, I went with the other solution, as there was less to memorize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d screw up. I’d forget a turn or get a turn backwards and mess the whole thing up. Then I’d redo the white face, solve the middle layer, and tackle the yellow face again. By lunchtime I was solving it consistently, ie., two out of three times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the Harrisburg Senators game<\/a> I picked up my Rubik’s Cube and worked at practicing the routines and solving the cube until about 12:30. In the morning, armed with more coffee, I picked it up again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ll set no speed records, and the method I’ve learned I know is not<\/em> efficient, but I can do it. I can solve the cube. Five minutes and it’s done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ll work at those other routines from the You Can Do the Rubik’s Cube<\/em> site, and I’ll even start learning the routines for the Rubik’s Revenge, the 4x4x4 cube. (I picked one of those up in Raleigh in April.) It’s only taken over thirty-five years to solve a Rubik’s Cube with nothing in front of me but the cube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel like I’ve accomplished something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I keep a Rubik’s Cube on my desk at the office. It’s something I can fiddle with when I’m thinking. Sometimes I’ll even take it into meetings. A couple of turns here, a couple of turns there, and if I mess it up, there’s an online solution — You Can Do the Rubik’s Cube —Continue reading “Learning to Solve the Cube”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":32046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[4639],"class_list":["post-32045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","tag-rubiks-cube","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}