Rubik's Cube - A Guide to Rubik's Cube & Beating it

It is said that the Rubik's Cube is the most popular puzzle game of all time because it has challenged over 500 million people.  Perhaps that is because it is simple to play but confoundingly complex to beat.  Hasbro (the toy company that sells the Rubik's Cube) says that there are billions of combinations but only one solution!

Others say that there are actually 43 quintillion wrong alignments! It's been calculated that it would take three centuries for random moves to come up with the correct alignment. 

Although it first became a craze way back in the 80s, it is still a popular toy.  As a testament to its enduring popularity, Hasbro today sells a Homer Simpson Rubik's Cube.  There's also a new 25th anniversary mirror-sided edition that comes with a solution hints book, and for those who find the original Rubik's Cube too easy (with or without solution hints), there are also super four-by-four and five-by-five Rubik's Cube puzzles that are exponentially more challenging than the original three by three version.

It may be a comfort to know that even the Cube's inventor, Hungarian Erno Rubik, found the puzzle to be a great challenge. Rubik's own hint for beating the cube is to start by aligning the eight corner cubies first. Another technique is to align the top layer, and then to align the other sides one by one. It is said that the shortest method for aligning the cube requires just 52 moves.