The rubik's puzzle

The Rubik's cube was apparently created by a Hungaian sculptor. He must have been a total genius or absolutely jobless. Anyways, he came up with this puzzle and it became famous in the US in the 1970s. Later it spread all around the world and is still one of the most intreguing puzzles to solve. Nowadays there are several new puzzles that've made their way to day to day talk like sudoko and stuff, but Rubik's cube stll rules.

I recently solved the rubik's cube. I started with a standard 3x3 cube and I hate to admit this but I didn't do it all by myself. By biggest help was Will Smith in "The pursuit of happYness". Great movie. It was not the thing he told about the center not moving but when he tries to solve Christophe's cube. I noticed that he goes about solving the cube layer by layer. The director's must have had a hard time tryng to teach him that. Then when he actually solves it in the car he does the same layer by later thing.

So to brief you on solving this, I'll give an overview of the basic steps you must take to solve the cube.
Note: This will not help you solve it but it'll only guide you towards the solution.

Step 0:
Observe he center pieces. These never move. While solving a cube, try to ensure the cube is oriented the way you want it. For example if the white center piece is at the top and the blue center piece is towards you, keep it that way. This way you'll have a point of reerece.


Step 1:
Make a cross on the top. Suppose you're solvin the white side, make a white cross on the top (assuming you have th white center piec oriented at the top). Here you have to be careful of the color policy.
Color policy: If you are looking at two adjacent sides, say white and blue (according to the center pieces), there will be only once piece in the middle of the edge that will fit here. That is the one with white and blue on adjacent sides.

Step 2:
Once you have the cross on the top, move the corner pieces of the top side color to the place they fit in. Use the color policy here too.

Step 3: Solving the middle layer
For simplicity, just turn the cube around to get the solved first layer at the bottom. Now the solved layer is at the bottom. Identify the pieces that go in the second layer. They will now be either in the second layer (middle layer) or the top layer.
[Complete procedure not shown as Pallavi is still stuck in this layer :) .. and she wants to find the procedure herself]

Step 4: The top cross
Now that you're at the top layer, aligning the cross over here is different from the procedure used for the botton cross. You should now observe that all the pieces that need to be in this layer are already there. You just have to align them properly. If you've solved the two layers properly, you'll start the third face in 4 possible combinations, based on the position of the middle pieces on each top face's edge:

Case 1: No other pieces of the same color
Case 2: One piece of the same color
Case 3: Two pieces of the same color on opposide edges
Case 4: Two pieces of the same color on adjacent edges



You have to use only one move to solve all these thigs, but with varying number of repetitions. (Min 1, Max 3)

The moves are:
1. Move the front face clockwise (The top-front edge's middle piece is right front edge's middle piece
2. Move the right face clock clockwise (The previous peice now aligns with the top center color)
3. Move the top face clockwise (Put the original peice, now oriented back in its place and prepare to get the peice moved to the back in the second step back to its place)
4. Move the right face anticlockwise (Put the peice moved to the back in the second step back in its place)
5. Move the top face antickockwise (Align to put the front edge middle piece back in its place)
6. Move the front face anticlockwise (Bottom face back in its solved state, and the top face in a more solved state)

Now, Here's the most important thing - The same steps can be followed for all the cases I listed above, but you should hold the cube such that the top face looks just as it is shown in the pictures. ie., if you look down on the top side you should see pieces of the same color in one of those formations.

I recently joing a 'Cubing' community and found out that there are 'standard' notation for doing this! The notations are:

F R U R' U' F'

(Hmm... These notations do make things easy. I'll use these from now on instead of the big descriptions)

Now you have a cross at the top, but the cross may not match with the colors on the other edges. Fixing this is the next step. If you started the top face with a cross already, go directly to the next step (duh!).

Aligning the cross properly
Magic of rubik's cube: If you just twist the top face around a little bit, you'll see that there are atleast two pieces that align with the color on the adjacent sides. Based on this there are two cases:

Case 1: Aligning pieces are on opposite sides
Case 2: Aligning pieces are on adjacent sides

For case 1, hold the aligning pieces such that they are at the right and left edges.
Then do the following: R T R' T R T T R' T T
Now your alignment is as described in case 2.
For case 2, hold the aligning pieces suck that they are at the back and right edges.
Then do the following: R T R' T R T T R' T

Ta da!!!

Now for the theory behind this: When you're holding the cube right, just imagine that the back middle piece on the right face is yourworking piece. The moves you'll do will put the solved piece there so that an unsolved piece can be brought back to the right edge's middle place on the top face. You do this twice to get each unsolved piece in its place.

I know its a bit confusing to understand when i say right top middle piece and left back top piece and stuff... But just try to understand. Phrasing those properly is a pain. And Im very lazy to do a proof check. :)

Step 6: Solving the edge pieces
Here's something that's easy to see but hard to explain. Compare the colors on the three sides of each unsolved edge piece. Find a piece whose colors match the color of the three adjacent sides. Suppose the colors on the edge piece were Yellow, Blue and Orange, then it should be Yellow, Blue and Orange center pieces (Remember: center pieces decide the color of the face) adjacent to this corner piece. BUT, the piece need not be oriented properly. Only the three colors must be the same, but colors need not align. (Got it? Hope so...)

Hold the cube such that this piece is at the bottom right corner of the top face.

Now, do this: T R T' L T R' T' L'
(This move is actually fun to do)

The piece that you first started with (bottom left corner on the top face) Is back in its place. Repeat till all the edge piece's color match with the adjacent 3 side's color. If you were able to do this, you're ready for the finale!

MAGIC NUMBER 6

For each unsolved piece that is at the top face's bottom left corner, do this:

R' D' R D

Once it aligns with the colors of the adjacent sides, just turn the top layer to get another unslved piece at the same location of the piece that was just solved. repeat. Don't wory about the other edges and faces.

The R' D' R D will be repeated either 6 or 12 times. And (again...) Ta da!!! the cube is solved!

Just for fun
If you solved the cube, do the R' D' R D 6 times. The cube gets back in its original form.