So you want to solve Rubik's Cube.

Have no fear, Chimm is here! Go ahead, dig it out. It's probibly in the back of the closet near those old psychadelic sandles you refuse to throw away. Go ahead and find it, I dare you......

On the next four "pages" you will find everything you needto exorcise a Cube! However, the solutions I have set forth assume you canalready do a few things.

I assume you can solve atleast one face of your Cube, and that you have already done just that. Let'sface it, if you can't solve even one face of a Cube, then You should be pummeled to death with a wet Furby.

I assume your cube has neverbeen taken apart and placed back together in any form except a completedform. If it has been rebuilt in an noncompleted form, this solutionset may very well not help you. This is because some of the edge cubes orcorner cubes may have been replaced backward. It may seem like there arean infinite number of ways for the Cube to look, but that is not true. Whenyou move one cube, other cubes must act in a specific manner. This limitsthe number of combinations by... a really big number. The chances of puttinga cube back together in such a way that it will actually be solvable arepretty slim, and this exorcism does not take into account extracurricularcube maintnance.

Revision!

Old Line: I assume you can think in three dimensions. Because pictures are flat, you will need to make a jump of reasoning when dealing with certain solution sets of this page.

And finally I assume youunderstand that the center cube on any face determines the color of thatface.

The Plan

Here's what we're going todo. I will lead you through the solutions in layers. When doing a layer,please take the time to read the entire page before starting. Thisis not a linear process. You may have to jump around the page (viahyperlinks) and even conduct some of the excorsism sets more than once toachieve your goal.

The first layer will be the side cubes. While doing any layer of cubes remember, you do not have to worry about anything else. All the other cubes will take care of themselves later. Just concentrate on the task at hand!

The second layer will be the bottom corner cubes. This is a two step process.

The first step will be to make sure that all of the cubes are in the correct spots. We will not worry about the colors matching (orientation). This is called the "Placement Step".
The second step will be to "twist" the corners into position so that the colors do match. This is called the "Orientation Step" (suprise).

The last layer will be the bottom edge cubes. Again, this is a two step process.

The first step will be to make sure that all of the cubes are in the correct spots. We will not worry about the colors matching (orientation). This is called the "Placement Step".
The second step will be to "flip" them so that the colors do match. This is called the "Orientation Step" (any of this sound familiar?).

Bearing all that in mind, we can move on to solving your Cube.

I would also like to makethis disclaimer. The solutions here are from books. I do not hold them all out as my own creations. Ifanyone recognizes these solutions as coming from any specific book, pleaselet me know! I will research the book and if it is one that we used, I willpost the appropriate credits. Thanks. Now let's get on with it!

Found One:

The Simple Solution to Rubik's Cube . NewYork: Bantam, 1981.

Let's get started!

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