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Wall Street 英語學院

How to Solve The Rubik's

Cube
If you're reading this, you're probably holding a cube in
your hand and already feeling bad about yourself for
needing to look up the solution. But don't worry! In fact,
most of the “super-human-intelligence beings” (a common
misconception) who have solved the cube thousands of
times in their lifetimes were sitting as you are now. Whether
you want to learn it to impress a girl, because your friends
bet you couldn't, or just to close the book on the biggest
time waste of your childhood by finally defeating it, this
guide will take you through the simplest way to conquer the
puzzle.

The necessary steps are listed below. Click on a cube to jump

on the page to the selected chapter:
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 An important thing to note is that this task is not a light one. It
may require several hours of attempts. If you'd rather just solve
the cube in your hand and forget about it rather than being able
to solve any cube you're given, there are plenty of solvers
available on the web. However, the satisfaction of holding a
completed Rubik's Cube in your hand and thinking “I did that,
and I can do it again” is greater than most, mainly due to the fact
that the puzzle has been present in all our lives at some point.
By the mid 1980's, an estimated fifth of the world's population
had attempted to solve the cube. If you want to stand out and
say that you can defeat the puzzle, time and determination is a
large factor.

Notation
If you're still reading,
congratulations on not being put
off by the time requirements!
The first thing you are going to
need to know about solving the
cube is how the turns you make
can be represented by letters.
Later on in this guide, you're
going to need a few algorithms.
These are combinations of
moves that rotate pieces or just
move them around to get them Up – Down – Left – Right –
where you want them. These Front – Back
algorithms are written using this
notation, so you can always
come back to this section if
you've forgotten by the time we
need them.

There are six sides on the

puzzle, referred to as faces, all
Privacy
of which can be turned
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 individually: Up, Down, Left,
Right, Front and Back.

The notation for each of these

is U, D, L, R, F and B
respectively. These faces can
be turned in three different
ways/directions, however.
These are:

– Refers to a
U
clockwise quarter turn of
the upper face.
F F' F2 R U L D
- + 0/7
– Refers to a
U'
counter-clockwise quarter
turn of the upper face

– Refers to a half
U2
turn in either direction of
the upper face.

That's it! For a visualisation of

each of these turns, click the
letters in the animation widget.

There is an advanced notation which includes turns of the

middle layers, rotations and “double” turns, but these aren't
needed for this guide. If you're still interested in learning them,
check them out in the advanced Rubik's notation.

Try it yourself! Take your cube and perform the following short
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 algorithm:
U' L R2 D B' F U2 R'

The left, back, and lower faces might be confusing at first when
trying to figure out the clockwise direction, but with a little
practice you'll get used to it.

Step 1: The Cross

The cross is the first step in the actual solution of the
puzzle. This step can be a bit confusing at first, so make
sure you read this a few times whilst attempting it yourself.
The image shows the end goal of this step.

The centre pieces on each face,

as you may have noticed from
playing around with the cube,
can't be moved to another spot,
only rotated. So we can use this
to our advantage by building
around the centres. The best
centre to build your first cross
around is the white centre, as
many guides and resources on
the web start with a white face,
so if you need to look up some
steps and examples elsewhere,
your cube will look similar to the
one that is being used in other
demonstrations.

The first thing you want to do is

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 get the white plus on top. You
don't need to worry about the
matching centres (the orange
and blue parts of the above
image) just yet.

For now, just get each white

edge on the top layer. It doesn't
matter if the white bit is on top
at the moment. For example,
your cube could look like the
one pictured. It doesn't matter if
all of the white bits are facing
up or none of them are.

The next step is to flip some of

the edges so all of the white
stickers face upwards, making a
plus (pictured above). If your
cube already has the cross,
skip this part. Hold the cube so
that one of the edges that
needs to be flipped is facing
you.

Then apply this algorithm:

F R' D' R F2

This algorithm will flip the edge

so the white part is facing
upwards. Do this for every edge
until you have a white cross on
top.

Now you need to orient these

pieces. Refer to the next
picture. As you can see, the
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 orange piece matches the
orange centre. Look at the
edges on your puzzle. You
could have none matching, two
matching or all matching. If you
have all four edges matching
the centres, your cross is
solved. If you have none
matching, perform a U move,
then look around the cube
again. You want to have at least
two matching. If none of them
match, do another U move.
Repeat until you have either
two or four edges matching
their centres.

Your goal is to have all four

edges matching their centres. If
you have this, then the cross is
solved. If you have only two,
then you could have one of two
cases. Either the two matching
edges are adjacent (next to
each other) or opposite each
other. If they are adjacent, hold
the cube so that the two solved
pieces are facing the front and
left of the cube (shown in the
left picture), then perform:

R' U R U' R'

If the two matching edges are

opposite one another, hold the
cube so that they are on the left
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 and right faces (shown in the
right picture) and perform the
following algorithm to swap the
one in the back and in the front:

R2 L2 U2 R2 L2

Your cross is now solved!

Step 2: The White Corners

Now you've done the edges on the white face, all that's left
are the corners. This step is much simpler, as it only
requires one algorithm. The picture shows the end goal of
this step.

Look on the bottom layer of the

puzzle. You're looking for the
white-orange-green corner.
There is a 50% chance it will be
on the bottom layer. Follow the
following steps depending on
where the corner is for you.

Bottom
If the corner is on the bottom of
the puzzle, perform the required
D moves so that the corner is in
the position marked in pink on
the picture. Perform this
algorithm as many times as is
needed to put the corner in its
place:
:
 R' D' R D

Top
If the corner is on the top of the
puzzle, hold the cube so that
the corner is in the position
marked in purple on the image,
and perform the same algorithm
as before:

R' D' R D

Now the corner is on the

bottom, so you can do the
above instructions.

Repeat this process for each

corner until the top layer is
solved. I suggest you to start
with the corners in the bottom
layer because solving these first
might pop out some white
pieces from the top layer and
you might save a couple turns.

Step 3: Middle Layer Edges

You're 1/3 done (kinda)! You're done with all white pieces,
so you can now flip your cube so white is on the bottom.

Look for an edge that is on the top face and doesn't have yellow
on it. There's a very small chance that there won't be any, but
there are instructions for that case below. Perform a U move so
that the colour on the front face of the edge is matching with the
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 centre. There are two directions that the edge could go, left or
right.

Left: Right:

If the edge needs to go in the If the edge needs to go in the

gap to the left of it perform gap to the right of it do this:
the following algorithm:

U R U' R' U'

U' L' U L U

F' U F
F U' F'

If there are no more edges left on the top layer, then they are
probably either inserted in the right place but flipped, or inserted
in the wrong place. To get an edge out of somewhere it shouldn't
be, just insert one of the yellow edges into that slot. This should
get the edge out and on the top layer, ready for you to use the
above instructions to insert correctly.

Repeat this process for all four middle edges.

:
 你英⽂程度⾼過
港⼈平均嗎？
你 英⽂ 幾好？ 15 鐘立即
測試。

Wall Street 英語學院

Step 4: Yellow Cross

We're nearly there now. 2/3 of the puzzle is solved, and
every piece left to be solved has yellow on it somewhere.
That's a good sign… right?

We're going to solve the top layer edges in two steps. In

this step will orient all of the pieces so that the yellow face
is facing up for all of them. The next will move these pieces
around and thus solve the cube.

Ignore the corners for now. You want to look at the edges only.
Either none, all, or two of the edges will already be oriented
correctly (the yellow part is facing up).

These are the four possible edge positions that you can have:

Do this to transfrom to the next state:

F R U R' U' F'

:
 If the edges are solved in a plus shape like the cross we made
at the start (the last image), you can skip this stage.

Beside the solved cross you can also have a “Dot”, an “L”
shape or a “Line” as pictured above. To transform the Magic
Cube from one state to the other, you have to apply the
following short algorithm, watching out for the L shape and the
line to be positioned as required:

F R U R' U' F'

If you are in a hurry you can speed up the process by doing two
jumps at once with this:

F U R U' R' F'

When you have an “L” shape, where the two yellow pieces
showing are adjacent one another. Do the required number of U
or U' moves to get this L as shown in the picture: the corner that
the two edges trap needs to be in the top left. Then perform this
algorithm:

F U R U' R' F'

If done correctly, you should now be looking at the yellow cross.

The third image shows the “Line” shape, where the two yellow
pieces showing are opposite one another. Make sure that the
yellow bar (the two edges and the middle sticker) is horizontal,
then do:

F R U R' U' F'

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 You should now be looking at four edges all oriented correctly.

For the “Dot” case shown in the first picture, just do either of
these algorithms to get a different case.

Step 5: Sune and Antisune

Sune is a very simple algorithm that many puzzlers love
due to its simplicity compared to other algorithms that they
may have had to learn. There are 7 different corner
positions possible after you have oriented the edges. Sune
and Antisune are two of these, but we won't always get
them straight away.

Refer to the image to see what

they look like. Both Sune and
Antisune have one correctly
oriented corner. You might have
two corners oriented or none
oriented. If you have all four
already facing upwards, you
don't need this step.

To get to the case where you

only have one oriented corner,
repeat the following algorithm:

R U R' U R

U2 R'
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 When you eventually get the
desired position, there are two
slightly different variations of it.
For this, we need to look at the
front of the cube. The yellow
corner facing the front can be
in two positions: Either facing
the front, or facing the right. In
the first image, it is facing the
front. This shows you have
Sune. To solve it, just do the
above algorithm one more time,
and you should have oriented
all of the top layer.
Sune and antisune
Antisune is indicated when the
corner facing the right, as
shown in the second picture:

U2 R U2 R' U'

R U' R'

Step 6: Finishing the puzzle

We're nearly there! Last part now.

Here, we're looking at the colours that aren't solved. There are
21 different cases for the top layer, but we only need a couple of
algorithms to solve them all. The first thing we want to find is
headlights. Only 2 of the cases don't have any headlights (one
of them is if you skip this step, and the cube is already solved).
For the one case without headlights, just perform the algorithm
below from any angle. This is a better case because when you
do the next step, the cube will be solved already.
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 Headlights are fairly simple to
spot. Looking at the image, we
can see on the right hand side
that the orange edge has a
green corner on either side of it.
That is a set of headlights. The
left hand side has two different
colours on either side, so that is Headlights: two corners having
not a set of headlights. It is very the same colour on one side
important to note that a full bar
(a blue edge has a blue corner
on either side of it, so all three
pieces are blue) is also seen as
a set of headlights. This is only
seen in one case of the 21
though, so you won't see it
often. If you have a set of
headlights on each side, ignore
this part and read the section
titled “The U Permutation”.

You want to hold the cube so that the set of headlights is facing
away from you (do the required number of U moves so that the
headlights aren't on the front, left or right). Then, do the
following algorithm:

R' F R' B2 R F' R' B2 R2

You should now have either a solved cube or a pair of

headlights on all sides.

The U Permutation

There are 5 different positions

your cube can be in now, one of
which could be solved. The rest
of them have all four corners
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 solved, so do the required
amount of U moves so that
every corner is in its right place.
2 of the 4 remaining possibilities
have a solved bar (as
mentioned above, where all
three colours on that side are
the same), and the other 2 have
no solved bars.

If you have a solved bar, put it at the back and do this algorithm:

R U' R U R U R U' R' U' R2

If your cube isn't solved, do it one more time, making sure the
bar is still at the back.

If you don't have a solved bar, do the same algorithm from any
angle. This will leave you with a solved bar, so you can do the
above.

Congratulations! You've solved the Rubik's Cube. Wasn't

that hard, was it?

This tutorial didn't help you?

Read the beginner's Rubik's guide or go to the Rubik's Cube
solver and let the program calculate the solution for you.
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