Currently, a new phenomenon has gripped my college - THE RUBIK's CUBE!!!
All of us have seen or even owned this mechanical beauty when we were kids. But few of us have made a serious effort to solve it(Sadly I am not one of those select few. But it is never too late to begin).Since the puzzle is so difficult to solve ,most people get enthralled by it in their college days(when there is lot of free time).If you happen to be a VNITian you may stumble upon a cube,because every other person seems to do the sliding and shifting to get the 6 faces right. Some of our fellow VNITians can do it blindfolded!!!
Rubik's Cube is a mechanical puzzle invented in 1974 by the Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Erno Rubik. Originally called the "Magic Cube" by its inventor, this puzzle was renamed "Rubik's Cube" by Ideal Toys in 1980 and also won the 1980 German "Game of the Year" (Spiel des Jahres) special award for Best Puzzle. It is said to be the world's bestselling toy, with some 300,000,000 Rubik's Cubes and imitations sold worldwide.The cube celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2005, when a special edition cube in a presentation box was released, featuring a sticker in the centre of the reflective face (which replaced the white face) with a "Rubik's Cube 1980-2005" logo.
A Rubik's Cube has nine square facelets on each side, giving fifty-four facelets in total,and occupies a volume of twenty-seven unit cubes. Typically, the faces of the cube are covered by nine stickers in six solid colours; there is one colour for each side of the cube.When the puzzle is solved, each face of the cube is a solid colour.
A normal (3×3×3) Rubik's Cube can have (8! × 38−1) × (12! × 212−1)/2 =43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different positions (permutations), or about 4.3 × 1019,forty-three quintillion (short scale) or forty-three trillion (long scale), but the puzzle is advertised as having only "billions" of positions, due to the general incomprehensibilityof such a large number to laymen. Despite the vast number of positions, all Cubes can be solved in twenty-six or fewer moves.
The cube gives your gray cells the best exercise if you try to solve it using your own logic.But there are also ready made algorithms available on the net. I am trying to memorise the steps . That way, you can improve your memory and its recall ability by setting time limits for solving the cube. I have memorised the steps for solving the upper layer and the middle layer. The bottom layer(toughest!!!),I am yet to conquer.
Some people in the world have mastered the cube-solving to such an extent that to keep the game challenging they have come up woth alternative competitions as
• Blindfolded solving
• Solving the cube with one person blindfolded and the other person saying what moves to do, known as "Team Blindfold".
• Solving the cube underwater in a single breath
• Solving the cube using a single hand
• Solving the cube with one's feet.

There are many approaches with which the cube can be solved I am listing two sites which use the same approach(which is called the Dedmore's solution).
1)The Rubik's Cube Solution
2)#-Link-Snipped-#


Over 25 years ,and the cube still remains as popular. And personally,I feel that people will prefer to solve it in the real world than in the virtual world.
The author of one of the sites providing solutions to the cube got it right when he said :"THE CUBE IS NOT DEAD!!!"