Historical Background of the Cube (From my head, feel free to correct):
The Rubik's cube was named after its founder. A Hungarian proffesor named Erno Rubik. Erno Rubik was attempting to invent a device that could have parts move by themselves without the rest falling apart. Later on he scarmbled the cube and attempted to put it back in its original orientation and noticed its potential as a Puzzle. He got a patent and released by the name of "Magic Cube". But changed later to be named after its inventor.
Erno Rubik still lives, and unfortunately doesn't really actively take part in the Speedcubing community. He very rarily attends competitions.
Feliks Zemdegs is the current holder of the World Record. He is a god in the Cubing world, he is by far the fastest cuber. However, there is much more to cubing than speed. Felik's isn't unbeatable, but I would take a lot of skill to beat him. If you wish to see his record solve, go to youtube for it. He solved it in 5.66 seconds. His story is actually quite amazing too.
3x3x3 CFOP Tutorial: Part 1.0
Notation:
The Cube consists of 6 faces. 9 stickers per side for a total of 54 stickers. In order to put cubing in a way that everyone understands, there needs to be a proper language to write algorithms in. This is known as notation.
Here is an example algorithm:
R U R' U'
This is known as the "Sexy Move". It is one of the most common algorithms in the 3x3 and appears inside of many algorithms.
It looks like this, (I use alg.garron.us to show algs. If you ever would like to see an alg in action, then simply plop it in to alg.garron.us)
R U R' U'
Each letter refers to an individual turn.
There are 7 letters that you need to know to turn the cube, and 2 that are rarely used.
R(ight)
L(eft)
D(own)
U(p)
B(ack)
F(ront)
M(iddle)
The other two:
S
E
Also they have notation for actual cube rotations,
x
y
z
As you may have noticed before I put an apostrophe on the end of a couple letters in the Sexy Move. Well thats because every standard letter without an apostrophe refers to a clockwise turn. With an apostrophe is called prime. Which is counter-clockwise.
Example:
U'
Also, you will see letters such as, D2. In which you not turn the layer once, but twice. Two is the maximum amount of turns you should do for any layer. U3 would be the same thing as U'. Thus you will never see anything above two unless the puzzle you are using a puzzle with more faces than the 3x3.
Another thing you need to know is that all the notation is in uppercase for single layer turns. You will often see a lowercase letter in Algorithms. This refers to moving the original face and the layer adjacent with it.
Example:
r
That is all you need to know about notation. Now I can get started upon the actual method of solving the cube. It is important to know the notation to the cube so you can properly use the algorithms I will show to you.
If you have anything you want to ask, or if you notice that I missed anything. Please tell me, I'm writing these as I go along.
