I know people that can solve it in seconds.
Others
that take nine minutes
and
Others that don't have the ability at all .

They need to do a medical study on what makes the ability happen.

We all have different skills and abilities. Some people can throw a football 65 yards from a kneeling position. The same folks could not write a simple essay. It is the study of human differences that is all. BTW how long does it take you to solve Rubik's cube?

I could be trapped on a deserted island with a Rubik’s cube and I still would fail to solve that fucker.

My grandson can solve a standard 9x9 cube in under a minute. He's eight. Learned how to do it by watching YouTube videos. Pretty cool. Myself not so much.

Hated the God damn thing personally.
My cousin could do it in a few minutes whereas I was lucky to get one side matching.

I haven't owned one since probably 1983, but I could do it in under 3 minutes back then. It took a long time to figure out at first though. I lived in Germany then, and they were pretty popular. There obviously wasn't any internet or YouTube guidance, but a lot of people could solve them, most of them much faster than me. I probably could have figured out a faster way eventually, but I was pretty happy just being able to solve it consistently.

Once understood, it is an easy puzzle to solve. I couldn’t do it as a kid, mostly because I had no patience for it. I can do it now as an adult rather quickly.

About 7 or 8 years ago one of my nephews went through a phase when he was into Rubiks cubes, when there was a resurgence in the fad. He started with the standard 9x9, but quickly progressed into the larger ones, as well as other geometric shapes. He would race to solve them while his Dad would time him on his phone and, while he never got near world record or competition level solve times, he got pretty darned fast, as in < 1 minute for a 9x9.

As his collection grew, I gave him one of my old cubes, with the understanding that he would find a friend or classmate that didn't have one (or couldn't afford one) and give my old one to them... but I have a sneaking suspicion that it ended up in a box on a shelf, or maybe Goodwill, when he lost interest in them.

I got my first Rubiks cube probably close to 40 years ago, several years after they first became a fad...err, actually mine was a rip-off because I was too cheap to pay full price for a name. Even my rip-off came with a solution book.

The solution to solving the Rubiks cube puzzle has been around since before the first one hit a store shelf, all those decades ago, and looong before the internet and YouTube were invented...and it involves nothing more than who is willing to learn the solution system.

What should really be studied is why some people are willing to put the time and work into learning how to solve a problem or puzzle, while others are not. There are simply some people too lazy to look for answers themselves, and instead prefer to take the easy route and be spoon fed by others.

quote:

Originally posted by divil:
I could be trapped on a deserted island with a Rubik’s cube and I still would fail to solve that fucker.

You and me both, Brother.

I can, however, shotput that sumbitch about 20 yards...

Curse that Ernő Rubik and all his progeny! I have wasted so many hours of my youth without ever solving the damn thing, I can't count them.

So bendable, if you need a "definitely doesn't have the gene" sample, I'm happy to send you my DNA.

If you don't find out/figure out the physical construction, and the limits that the construction puts on the pattern, it's really difficult to solve.

But, once you find out that there are little axles fixed in place with particular colors stuck to their ends that form the center of each face, and everything else rotates around those axle ends, things start to come together.

I don't have the brain for it but never put much effort into it either.

It would be interesting to know for those that can solve them what there occupations are.

I've never even seen one in person, much less tried to solve one.

I took my brothers apart in the 80s and solved it that way.

My FIL got one last year for Christmas and he looked at a video online and had it solved w/I a few minutes. Apparently you can memorize a sequence of twisting and it will be fixed.

We didn’t have that in the 80s

I've tried a few times over the years, but never got any further than one side all the same color.

We used to keep busy on mid watch with em. With practice the whole team was under a minute.

I can’t remember most the algorithms now though.

Not something I ever bragged about, but I won the Rubik's cube championship in grades school in the early 80's. Can't remember exactly but under 30 seconds. My boy picked one up in jr high and got almost that fast. So maybe something to the genetics.

Tommy

I can get one side and that's about it. Sure, I could watch a video to see how to solve it, but I don't think you learn anything by having someone tell you how to do it. I still have my Rubik's Cube from the early 80s. I may give it a serious try one of these days. Maybe while I am watching Season 1 of Miami Vice.

I used to be pretty good at solving a Rubik’s cube, once I learned how to do it. I cheated and bought a book that showed you what you needed to do.

Now my son……holy crap, he solves bigger cubes, not just the 3x3 ones!

"BTW how long does it take you to solve Rubik's cube?"


I've always found comfort in the colorful randomness of the cube,
I'd rotate the whole cube from one day to the next,
for a change of scenery .

There is a subtle beauty in minimal chaos.