Cubin' for the Best Time

In a dizzying demonstration of mental calculations, manual dexterity, and muscle memory, James Ouyang, SEAS '10, twists and turns his clicking contraption and, within a minute, slams down a fully solved Rubik's Cube.

Ouyang was first introduced to the mechanical puzzle at the age of eight, but he didn't learn how to solve it until two summers ago. His first successful attempt to solve the 3-by-3-by-3 Rubik's Cube took him six minutes. Since then, Ouyang has competed in five national events and has achieved a lifetime best of 24.40 seconds.

"Everyone had one of those crappy Chinese knock-offs somewhere in their house. I had one, but like everyone else, I just threw it in the closet after I couldn't solve it," Ouyang said.

Ernö Rubik, a Hungarian sculptor and architecture professor, invented the puzzle in 1974, and today there are four common variations: the 2-by-2-by-2, 3-by-3-by-3, 4-by-4-by-4, and 5-by-5-by-5.

"Speedcubing" originally became an interest of the SEAS first-year when he attended a Stanford University math camp where many students knew how to solve Rubik's Cubes. Ouyang went to the local Toys "R" Us, bought one the day after camp ended, and spent a week over the summer learning how to solve it.

When he found out the Exploratorium in his hometown of San Francisco was hosting the January 2006 Caltech Winter Competition, Ouyang made a spur-of-the-moment decision to participate and ranked 43rd with a time of 56.01 seconds. It was at the Cornell spring competition on March 31, 2007, where he achieved his current personal best. Ouyang also competed in the 4-by-4-by-4 and 5-by-5-by-5, and he is currently ranked 166th in the world for the 3-by-3-by-3 for 2007.

Although a standard 3-by-3-by-3 Rubik's Cube has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000, or 43 quintillion different positions, every single position can be solved with at most 27 face turns, which is a turn of 180 degrees along one rotating axis.

Ouyang, like many other "speedcubers," uses a method developed by Jessica Fridrich, a professor at the SUNY Binghamton's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. This method is the most common and is referred to as CFOP. A cross of single color is formed on one face, and then its corners are added to construct a single face. The first two layers are then matched up, and finally the last layer is manipulated to solve the entire cube.

Ouyang said that solving the cube is a hobby because there is a certain pride in being able to do something very well, no matter what it may be. He hopes to achieve a best time below 20 seconds on the 3-by-3-by-3.

Next semester, Ouyang hopes to start a Columbia Rubik's Cube club and host a competition in late fall.