First, we must arrive at a standard for referring to the cube sides. When you hold the cube
in your hands (or other appendages as may be the case), F is the side facing you,
likewise with L (left) and R (right). B is the side on the bottom
and k is the back (or far, or aft) side. In terms of rotation,
+ is clockwise, while - is counterclockwise.
To start, you must have one side completely matching. Note that the sides match their appropriate middle colors. We won't go into how to get this far. If you can't get one side all matching, go play Fortnite.
Pick one of the sides whose right middle edge piece is located on the bottom edge. Rotate the bottom of the cube if need be to align the piece either bottom-right or bottom-front of where it needs to go. Follow the directions below depending upon which configuration you are looking at. Repeat the process for every middle edge on the cube until they are all in their correct positions. Notice that you must align the bottom row so that the color of the bottom edge matches the color of the middle piece.
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Next, get all four bottom corners in the correct spots, but not necessarily
in their correct orientation. This will be done in step IV. Note that from this point on you need to turn the cube upside down, so what is the
F side feels like is in the back, while the B side is at the top. Despite this, we continue to call
the sides in their original names.
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Looking at the bottom side, determine which configuration you are looking at
from the picture below. The blue squares represent the correct color of the bottom.
Once you have determined which combination you have, orient the bottom of the cube
like shown in the picture below.
Now, no matter what you have been considering left, front, and right previously,
this becomes your new orientation. With the cube held in your hand this way,
follow the directions below.
(Repeat this procedure until all four bottom corners are aligned correctly.)
R- B- R+ B- R- B2 R+ B2 |
Lastly, position the bottom edges. The way you hold the cube is determined by the pattern formed by the bottom color positions as shown in the pictures below.
In the following steps, it's good to think of the (L- R+) sequence as rotating the L and R
sides away from you, while the (L+ R-) sequence feels like rotating them back towards you, relative to the middle
of the cube that stays still (as the B side is facing upwards towards your eyes.
(L- R+) F+ (L+ R-) B2 (L- R+) F+ (L+ R-)
Hold the positioned square at BF and run the same sequence as Zero Positioned.
(L- R+) F2 (L+ R-) B2(L- R+) F+ (L+ R-) B2(L- R+) F2 (L+ R-) B-
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(L- R+) F+ (L+ R-) B+(L- R+) F+ (L+ R-) B+(L- R+) F2 (L+ R-) B+(L- R+) F+ (L+ R-) B+(L- R+) F+ (L+ R-) B2
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(L- R+) F+ (L+ R-) B-(L- R+) F- (L+ R-) B-(L- R+) F2 (L+ R-)
... then go to * |
I have found this solution on the early internet, circa 1996. I do not know who the original author was, the only thing I do know is that the site was hosted by speedsoft.com proclaimed as "the most affordable website hosting on the Internet!". I do wish I knew who the original author of this solution was, to be able to give proper credit. :-\
For many years, I had kept this HTML page and its original GIF images, until around 2010 when I recreated some of those pictures in PhotoShop. In 2019, I decided to recreate those .GIFs in SVG format, basically converting the whole page into a single HTML file with no other dependencies. The SVGs were hard to create by hand, so I used a pretty basic orthographic projection, while for the extruded Bottom view of the cube (section III), I created a small Python script to generate the SVG programmatically.
In 2022, my son started getting interested in the Rubik's cube, so I dusted off this page again and decided to do something better with those horrible looking SVGs; I decided to recreate them in proper 3D perspective, so I set off building a 3D cube in Processing (processing.org). The result is the new SVGs in sections I to III of this page.