After years of wanting to learn how to solve the Rubiks cube and realizing I don't have the brainpower to do it on my own, I learned a few algorithms and can do it in around 2:30. Nothing like the little kid who just set a world record under 5 seconds average of a few solves....
but who knows, with enough practice....
My nephew is good at that. There's a 4x4x4 version, too, or maybe 5x5x5.
Any links to learning the tricks? That'd be a cool party trick to learn.
In reply to Lof8 - Andy :
This is the one I used. It took a little time to figure some of the stuff out so I wouldn't say it's a great guide but it worked for me.
https://ruwix.com/the-rubiks-cube/how-to-solve-the-rubiks-cube-beginners-method/amp/
We gave our son a rubik cube some 30 years ago when he was about 6 years old. He was a very smart kid and after about 15 minutes he had it done. His mother and I were very impressed until we later found out that he pealed the colored stickers off and put them back on in the finished order. Which was still pretty smart.
That's so 80's.
Which is to say I got one in the 80's. Took a few weeks to do it the first time, and then saw an article that had a pattern.
My daughter was working on the Rubik's cube in freshman algebra. I complained to the school that they shouldn't be teaching witchcraft in a Catholic institution.
They were popular at my workplace in the early 80's with lots of people twiddling incessantly. I don't know where I found it, pre internet, pre email, but discovered if you popped it apart (tearing a corner piece off IIRC) and put it back together "wrong" it was then incapable of being solved.
Led one of my big headed colleagues mad till he found out what had been done 
I keep one on my desk and used to do it during support calls. I can do it, but I've never been fast. Got a few different variants, there's one with pentagonal sides on my desk right now.
Weirdest one I've got has uneven cuts and silver sides. It's exactly like a 3x3 to solve, but looks like a mineral specimen.
I've been very disappointed to never solve the cube on my own. I've never resorted to algorithms. Any other 3d type puzzle I have never struggled with like the cube. I can't get past the idea that using algorithms is cheating to me.
Someone once gave me a sudoku Rubik's Cube as a gift.
I don't do sudokus and I am completely lost with a Rubik's Cube so I have no idea where they got the idea that I'd like that.
In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :
Me too. I guess someone had to come up with the algorithms but it seems like this could be impossible to solve on your own.
and even if you could solve it on your own, it would be on a case-by-case basis.
I finally made peace with it by realizing that everyone who solves it does it using them (algorithms) and there is still a skill in memorizing them, looking for patterns and trying to do it quickly.
plus I knew i am not smart enough to ever do it on my own so either I never do it or I try to learn methods that everyone else uses.
but I, too, feel that I am cheating!
Will Smith took lessons for two weeks to do a movie scene, he does it in under a minute.
I want to smash one apart to see how they work.
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