Breaking an Old Code -And Beating It to Pieces
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Breaking an Old Code -And beating it to pieces Daniel Vu - 1 - Table of Contents About the Author................................................ - 4 - Notation ............................................................... - 5 - Time for Some Cube Math........................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. Layer By Layer Method................................... - 10 - Step One- Cross .................................................................................................................................. - 10 - Step Two- Solving the White Corners ................................................................................................. - 11 - Step Three- Solving the Middle Layer................................................................................................. - 11 - Step Four- Orient the Yellow Edges.................................................................................................... - 12 - Step Five- Corner Orientation ............................................................................................................ - 12 - Step Six- Corner Permutation ............................................................................................................. - 13 - Step Seven- Edge Permutation............................................................................................................ - 14 - The Petrus Method........................................... - 17 - Step One- Creating the 2x2x2 Block ................................................................................................... - 17 - Step Two- Creating a 2x2x3 Block...................................................................................................... - 18 - Step Three- Orienting the Remaining Edges....................................................................................... - 18 - Step Four- 2x3x3 Block (First Two Layer) ......................................................................................... - 19 - Corners First Method....................................... - 20 - Step One- Placing White Corners ....................................................................................................... - 20 - Step Two- Orienting yellow corners.................................................................................................... - 20 - Step Three- Permuting Yellow Corners .............................................................................................. - 21 - Step Four- Placing Three White Edges............................................................................................... - 21 - Step Five- Placing Four Yellow Edges ............................................................................................... - 21 - Step Six- Final White Edge ................................................................................................................. - 22 - Step Seven- Middle Layer.................................................................................................................... - 22 - Teddy’s Corner- First Method ........................ - 24 - Step One- White Corners .................................................................................................................... - 24 - Step Two- Yellow Corner Permutation ............................................................................................... - 25 - Step Three- Yellow Corner Preparation ............................................................................................. - 25 - - 2 - Step Four- Yellow Orientation............................................................................................................ - 26 - Step Five- Middle Ring........................................................................................................................ - 27 - Step Six-Centers .................................................................................................................................. - 27 - Step Seven- White Edges ..................................................................................................................... - 27 - Step Nine- Yellow Edge Orientation ................................................................................................... - 28 - What Next? ....................................................... - 29 - Getting Faster in General ................................ - 30 - Patterns! ............................................................ - 31 - Blindfolded Cubing .......................................... - 37 - Orientation of Corners........................................................................................................................ - 38 - Orientation of Edges ........................................................................................................................... - 39 - Current World Record Statistics .................... - 40 - Pictures.............................................................. - 40 - Cube Care ......................................................... - 43 - Disassembling the Cube...................................................................................................................... - 46 - Assembling the Cube........................................................................................................................... - 46 - Links .................................................................. - 47 - Solutions.............................................................................................................................................. - 47 - Tools.................................................................................................................................................... - 48 - Purchasing Puzzles ............................................................................................................................. - 49 - - 3 - About the Author My name is Daniel Vu. I am a fourteen year old student about to enter high school. I have been doing the cube for half a year now and many people believed I started the Rubik’s Cube fad at my school, though I believe it was more through the help of the “Pursuit of Happiness”, which starred Will Smith doing the Rubik’s Cube. I rank fairly high on my school’s leader board for speed solves, estimating around second place if we actually had a physical board to show it. I would be behind my teacher, who did it 20 years ago, so it does not come to much surprise. I created this book to help others see all factors of the Rubik’s Cube and get them to be less ignorant. I know, it is an impossible task but it is worth a shot. Most people at my school scream “Oh my gosh, that guy can solve five cubes blindfolded behind his back in 20 seconds!” which, by the way, is probably physically impossible for even the professional. I’m here to teach not only how to solve the cube one way, but three ways. I will attempt to show you ALL aspects of the cube, which will be very tough, especially with my inexperience. But as my knowledge of the cube grows, so will this book. So sit back, relax…. Uhh, no, go get a dang cube first! Jeeze, what are you going to do without a cube, actually read?? Ha, let us begin. - 4 - Notation There are a variety of ways to notate the ways to solve a Rubik’s Cube. Each notation has its pros and cons, and if you decide to learn from other people, it may be helpful to know the keys for each of the notations. The first notation I will show you is the Singmaster notation. It is the system I have seen most widely used, and is very easy to use. For the most part, the letters represent the first letter of each side. U- Up It is important to The default letter by itself D- Down capitalize these letters, means a single turn CW. L- Left as a lower case letter However, when an R- Right represents a “double apostrophe follows it, it B- Back layer turn”. In the case means a CCW turn. If the F- Front of r, not only would letter is followed by a 2, you turn the right face, that means you would turn but you would grab the that layer twice. middle layer next to it. For the most part, when people needed to dictate a single middle layer turn that didn’t include its outer layer, then they would simply write down the lower case letter with its capital letter inverse, such as r R’. However, in the case of the Corners- First Method, this is highly aggravating to notate. Thus, the Harris notation allows us to notate each individual middle layer. The rest of the outer layers are still done in the same fashion, so there is no need to repeat the same table. - 5 - M refers to the middle layer between L and R. M would be equal to r’ R, and M’ would be equal to r R’. E refers to the middle layer between U and D. E would be equal to d D’ and E’ would be equal to d’ D. S refers to the middle layer between F and B. S would be equal to f F’, and S’ would be equal to f’ F. I don’t exactly know the origin of this letter, but I use it anyways. Along with these notations, some algorithms find the need to use cube rotations. It would be a pain to say r’ L all the time, so the cubing community have decided on using the 3d coordinate axis plane to dictate cube rotation. If you know about the 3d coordinate plane, you would know that the Z axis goes straight in front of you, the X axis goes from left to right, and the Y axis goes from up to down. If you imagine each axis like a skewer, and you prodded each axis into the cube, and you