5x5's and Up

[tfkscores]

If you know how to solve a 4x4 do you automatically know how to solve a 6x6? Or even a 7x7 or 5x5? I'm planning on buying some but I dont know if there is a difference or not. Also could you post a good tutorial on how to solve a 5x5 and up? Thanks

 

[Musturd]

Basically you do, but you may have to alter an algorithm you learned for the 4x4 by a slice or two.
It wouldn't hurt watching a tutorial video for a bigger cube if you get stuck, though.

 

[JLarsen]

I say once you can solve a 4x4 and 5x5 you can solve anything bigger.

 

[Musje]

I've solved the 5x5 once (not mine, friend brought it to school)
Without any help, just my knowledge of 3x3 and 4x4

But then I didn't have parity so that might be a problem (and took me like 3 minutes to get the last 2 edges lined up because I couldn't use my 4x4 method)

 

[Edam]

7x7's last 2 centers can trip you up a little if you're not used to them, you have to understand what you're doing a bit more,

 

[rjohnson_8ball]

A 4x4 does not equip you to handle the centers on big cubes. Try big cubes (like 7x7) for free first by downloading the free NxN cube program at gabbasoft.com.

 

[Dene]

Not necessarily. If you understand what you are doing you will not have any trouble. But if you don't understand, like many people, you will not be able to do it.

 

[mrCage]

Not necessarily. If you understand what you are doing you will not have any trouble. But if you don't understand, like many people, you will not be able to do it.

Let's face it. Today most fresh cubers do not try to understand what they are doing. They simply want a fast recipe or method for their cube solving. No such recipe for 4x4x4/5x5x5 would equip you with tools for handling all the centers cases showing up on larger cubes. If you fully understand the method you have learnt you would be better equipped, yes.

Extreme speed solving does not provide you with in depth knowledge applicable to universal puzzle solving. For that you'd be better off learning general solving skills like analysing cycical decomposition of the available turns, commutator construction etc etc ...

Per

 

[AvGalen]

Let's face it. Most cubers never tried to understand what they were doing, ever. This isn't something that is different with this generation of cubers.

When I got my hands on a 3x3x3 I couldn't figure it out myself and learned my first method. I didn't understand the "rules of the cube", orientation or anything I consider common knowledge right now. All I understood intuitively was that "centers didn't move, piece (not stickers) had to go to a fixed place and that blockbuilding or layering would be a way to solve it

I figured out how to do many other puzzles (magics, clock, pyraminx, nintendo barrel and variations and even square-1) before I finally decided to find a way of solving a 3x3x3 myself (I called them pretty algs, turned out they were mostly commutatorbased algs)

Today, I wouldn't know what cycical (cyclic?) decomposition would be.

 

[rahulkadukar]

I believe it depends on the method. If you are using a very basic beginners method for 4x4x4 and 5x5x5 and know what is going on then you can solve any cube

 

[AvGalen]

I believe it depends on the method. If you are using a very basic beginners method for 4x4x4 and 5x5x5 and know what is going on then you can solve any cube

At first I used a layer-by-layer method from 3x3x3 on bigger cubes. This works just fine without the need to learn anything new (except parity)

And for PLL-parity on 4x4x4 I actually discovered that "rebuilding the centers shifted by one" (so instead of red-green-orange-blue I build green-orange-blue-red, like on a void-cube) worked. I found out much later that that was because that equalled a quarter turn move (D or D')

I don't remember how I solved OLL Parity anymore. I think I swapped 2 centers and then restored them in another way.

But if you learn and understand a reduction method (centers, edge-pairing, 3x3x3, parity) or a corners first method for 4x4x4 you can solve any size cube after some playing around