Speed cubes 3x3: The classics

The classic

The 3x3 speed cube was the first version of the speed cube and was invented in 1974 by a Hungarian professor for physics and design. In 1980 cube fever hit the entire world; though, in the beginning, only a few people were able to solve the riddle on their own. It wasn’t until 1981 when the SPIEGEL magazine published an intelligible solution, that the larger public was able to straighten out the different layers of the cube.

Structure of the classic 3x3 speed cube

The standard 3x3 cube has six different colours and a total of 26 pieces. These consist of

• 6 single-coloured middle pieces that, as the name suggests, sit in the centre of each cube face. They are mounted on a coordinate axes system which always keeps the pieces at the same distance to each other. This coordinate axes system sits in the heart of the speed cube. It is the reason why a speed cube has “only” 26 pieces and not 27 as one would think.
• 12 two-coloured edge pieces which are held by the middle pieces.
• 8 three-coloured corner pieces which are held by the bordering edge pieces.

The standard colours of the cube faces are white, yellow, orange, red, green and blue. White is always situated opposite of yellow. Orange is always across from red and green is always on the opposite side of blue.

World records

The first world championship was held on June 5th, 1980 in Budapest. That day, the first world record was set with 22.95 seconds by the American Minh Thai. Afterwards, the initial hype fizzled out and so this record stood for more than 20 years. It wasn’t until 2003, when the record was actually broken twice, first by Dan Knights with 16.71 seconds and then by Jess Bonde with 16.53 seconds. Since then, new records are constantly being set. In 2015, the 5-second barrier was broken by Lucas Etter. Currently, the world record stands at an incredible 3.47 seconds, set by Yusheng Du.

If you are interested in an overview of the world records in recent years, then we have the right video for you:

What is “God’s number“?

“God’s number” or “God’s algorithm” is the number of fewest moves required to solve the speed cube, regardless of the original configuration. Scientists spent a lot of time trying to find out what that number is. The mystery was only solved in 2010, thirty years after the tricky cube hit the market.

Why did it take this long?
There are more than 43 trillion (that’s 43 with 18 zeroes!) possible starting combinations of the speed cube. From each combination, there are 18 possible moves. After each move, there are 18 more. No computer in the world is capable of calculating the optimal number of moves from that. In 1992, Herbert Kociemba, a physics and math teacher, was able to write an algorithm that made it possible to whittle the possibilities down to 20 thousand million. This was a number, modern computers could calculate without problems. In the years that followed, the algorithm was further improved upon by computer scientist Tomas Rokicki.

What result did they finally come up with?
No matter the given combination of the speed cube, it can be solved with 20 moves. “God’s number” is therefore 20!

How do you solve a 3x3 speed cube as a beginner?

For anyone who has never even held a cube before, we have an easy tutorial: solving a 3x3 speed cube. Those who are a little more advanced can find tutorials for methods such as CFOP or Roux on the same page.