Solving without instructions

[Ruprecht]

I haven't been able to find much info about people who have solved a cube without instructions. It seems the few who have, have taken about a month. I'd like to know what is the shortest realistic time anyone has heard of, or thinks is possible. I'm not talking about a lucky one-off, but rather someone who figured it out, then could repeat it. Has any first timer ever done it in say an hour, is that possible?
Thanks.

 

[sqAree]

I'm pretty sure anyone who studied maths properly could come up with a solution in less than an hour, probably even way faster (just use comms, conjugates, realize the cube is a group).
But I have the feeling the people who studied maths already know how to solve one anyway.. ^^

 

[efattah]

I got my first cube in 1981 at age 6 and it took me 1 year to solve it with no instructions. Erno Rubik who invented the cube took 1 month to solve it and he is a math genius and professor. Now days people understand puzzle theory much better, back then it was different.

 

[SenorJuan]

I knew 3 people back in 1981-ish who managed to devise a way of solving the puzzle. Interestingly, all of them used some form of corners-first process. One achieved it during the summer school break (6 weeks), and I recall another took one or two months.
I suspect if you gave the guidance "corners then edges" to someone reasonably smart and with plentiful free time, then they could end up with a workable solution in a couple of weeks. The 'mistake' nearly all beginners make is trying to solve layer-by-layer in some fashion, which ultimately need a lot more thought to crack.

 

[efattah]

I also used a generally corners-first approach, but it was more like Waterman (top layer minus 1 edge, then bottom corners). Someone on Reddit asked about solving the cube without any algorithms, which is the method I developed on my own in 1981. My reddit post explaining that method:

"

1. Solve the first (top blue slice) intuitively
   
   
2. Inspect the bottom corners. Break off a corner from the top layer and put it back in a different way. Now the bottom corners will be in a different configuration. Keep repeating this step (2) breaking off a top corner and putting it back in different ways. Eventually after around 30-60 minutes of trying, the bottom corners will be solved.
   
   
3. Now use the keyhole method to solve the L/R edges. Hold blue/green on left and right, and place the target blue or green edge at DF with the blue or green facelet on the D face Now do U/M'/U' or U'/M'/U to place the edge into its place at UR or UF. Repeat for all the rest of the edges. Now only the middle slice is solved.
   
   
4. The middle slice can be intuitively permuted by U2/M/U2. This will only solve it if the edges are correctly oriented which they are usually not. Again we repeat similarly to before; break off an edge from UR/UL and put them back in a different way. Keep doing this until the M-slice edges are correctly oriented.
   
   
5. Permute the M-slice with U2/M/U2

Cube is now solved with no algorithms. Takes around 60 minutes. The 3 move sequences I listed above are not algorithms, they are just intuitive movements of the cube that are easily visualized."

 

[Rcuber123]

Tony Fisher made a video about how he solved the cube. His solution is pretty cool!

 

[Ruprecht]

Thanks all.
I'll ask the question a different way. If someone claimed to have solved a cube in x minutes, at what point would you know it was a false claim? As above, I am not talking about a lucky one off. I’m imagining an average person, but you can include a professor in an appropriate field, or a savant (do cubing savants exist?).

 

[AlphaSheep]

I know of a boy who doesn't have any method and figures it out from scratch each time. It can take him anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour. According to his parents, he took a couple of hours to figure out out for the first time.

 

[DGCubes]

Thanks all.
I'll ask the question a different way. If someone claimed to have solved a cube in x minutes, at what point would you know it was a false claim? As above, I am not talking about a lucky one off. I’m imagining an average person, but you can include a professor in an appropriate field, or a savant (do cubing savants exist?).

Do you mean for the first time? I'd imagine under 30 minutes or even an hour for the first solve would be near impossible. Under a day at all would still be ridiculously impressive, but I might believe it if the person gave enough evidence.

If you're talking about speedsolving in general, the world record is 4.73 seconds, and Feliks Zemdegs has an unofficial 3.01. Although, if the claim is coming from someone I've never heard of before, I'd be pretty doubtful if they said they averaged sub-8.

 

[efattah]

Having solved it myself without instructions and being somewhat of a math whiz myself, I would say a first time solve would take a full day, all day. Anything less I would be very suspicious about, and any claim under 5 hours would be likely fake unless the person was some type of savant.

 

[SenorJuan]

For ordinary mortals trying to devise a solution, there's only so much 'simple stuff' you can keep in your head. Pretty soon, you're going to want to document what you're doing, what you've tried, discovered, rejected, had ideas about...etc. Which means writing down things on paper. But ..... you don't know cube notation. You may know that such a thing exists, and so you'll have a stab at inventing your own sort of 'cube algebra'. But nearly everyone ends up doing little drawings, with arrows on them, and often with coloured pencil tiles drawn on, etc. All that takes lots of time, and seriously slows down your rate of progress.
And don't forget...every time you try something, and completely muck it up, you'll end up starting from near the beginning again, which is very time-consuming when you can barely solve it anyway.

So believable figures of 'one month solutions' will actually include a huge amount of 'wasted' time.