M2M Day 62: Solving a Rubik’s Cube in under 20 seconds
This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For January, my goal is to solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 20 seconds
It’s January 1st today, which means it’s time to start a new challenge. This month, my goal is to solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 20 seconds.
Why 20 seconds?
Two months ago, at San Francisco’s Ferry Building, I went to a book event and signing by Ian Scheffler, the author of Cracking the Cube, the predominant book on speed cubing (the competitive sport of solving the Rubik’s Cube).
At the event, I spoke with the author and the dozens of Bay Area speed cubers that attended. I wanted to learn about the major benchmarks in the sport.
Repeatedly, what I heard was “The most significant benchmark in speed cubing is the 20-second mark. Breaking 20 seconds is like breaking the four minute mile”.
At first, I just thought that the equivalence was symbolic, but, that day, I also heard that “If you look at the proportion of cubers who can solve “sub-20” to all cubers (i.e. people who own a Rubik’s Cube), it’s about equivalent to the proportion of runners who can run sub-4 miles out of all competitive runners”.
I’m not exactly sure how this was computed, or exactly how accurate it is. But, nevertheless, it’s clear that 20 seconds is the most notable benchmark in speed cubing.
Thus, I’ve set my sights on a sub-20 time.
My starting point
I actually have a long history with the Rubik’s Cube: I originally learned how to solve it when I was in Middle School, and, ever since, I’ve been casually solving it for fun.
However, I’ve never really tried to go fast. Instead, I prefer the more meditative, tactile approach of smoothly solving the cube.
In fact, I haven’t actually timed myself in eight or nine years. So, to properly kick off this month, I set up a camera and a computer-based timer, and completed five solves at top speed.
The average of the five solves was 48.29. (44.46, 51.83,46.15, 53.62, 45.41).
This isn’t horrible nor is it great. However, if you have no Rubik’s Cube experience, it’s possible to think that I’m not too far away from a sub-20 time.
But, to continue the running analogy, solving a Rubik’s Cube in 48.29 is symbolically equivalent to running a 7-minute mile. In other words, it’s a reasonably respectable time for an amateur, but it’s far from a competitive time for a serious athlete.
A month of deliberate practice
Over the past nine years, I’ve solved the Rubik’s Cube hundreds of times, but never with the goal of improving. As a result, my time has only improved by around 10 seconds from 60-ish seconds to 50-ish seconds.
This month, I’m taking a more deliberate approach with my practice, explicitly looking to shave another 30 seconds off my time.
My hope is that my effort this month reveals the overwhelming difference between nine years of mindless practice and 30 days of deliberate practice.
Time to formulate my plan of attack…
Read the next post. Read the previous post.