How to solve a rubix cube

Probably not the way you think it should be solved. :)

The first mistake almost everyone makes is that they try to solve one side, and then move on. Don’t even bother trying that; it won’t work. The second mistake almost everyone makes is taking stickers off when they can’t solve it. If you’re going to cheat, at least cheat by disassembling the cube itself. (Twist one side 45 degrees and pull up on one of the twisted side’s edge pieces - the pieces showing exactly two colors.) This way your stickers won’t fall off, and you’ll get to see how the internal mechanics of the cube work.

You really can’t solve permutation puzzles by intuition or by just planning ahead. You might be able to solve some of the puzzle without knowing tricks, but you’ll eventually come to a point where your incomplete understanding of what a move will do prevents you from solving part of the puzzle without mixing up the rest. This is where algorithms come in.

Algorithms are sequences of moves that you remember because they have a predicable effect: flipping the orientation or swapping the position of certain pieces, while only affecting other pieces in known ways. By far the coolest and most instructive way to learn to solve a Rubik’s Cube is by teaching yourself. Here you’re going to be discovering and memorizing your own algorithms, mostly through trial and error. If you’re going this rout, here’s a tip: The middle pieces don’t move. Because of this you can look at the two colors of an edge piece or the three colors of a corner piece and know where they’ll have to ultimately end up.

Most people just want to be taught how to solve the cube. If you’re not up for making your own method, there are plenty of solutions that others have been kind enough to share. I think the best method for a beginner is the Petrus Method, by Lars Petrus. The Petrus method is nice because the first few steps are intuitive - requiring no memorization. From that point on there are fewer algorithms to memorize than you find in most solutions, although you can learn more if you want to solve the cube faster. Another big advantage of learning the Petrus Method is that he’s made a great online tutorial, including a java simulation of the cube demonstrating each step. You can find his website here:

lar5.com/cube/

If you practice the Petrus method, you should have no problem solving the cube in under a minute. Have fun!