Rubik's Cube

by
Georges Helm

More than 4.900.000 visitors since December 27th, 1995.

Solutions to the puzzles - Where to buy the puzzles - Discussion Forums worldwide

Although the cube had been invented as early as 1975 by Ernő Rubik, the cube fever spread only in 1980 to last until 1983. Some clubs and newsletters popped up only to vanish after some months / issues. But since the use of internet has been established world-wide, the cube has been kissed to life once again. And the cube is feeling fine!

Some historical information (PDF file)

Here is the gallery of my cube collection (updated January 21st, 2022).

I sold cubes of good quality This sale has come to an end after having sold nearly 2000 cubes. All my customers are happy with them.

I had to unpack my cubes once again to add the new ones and I took some fotos while they were lying around in my room

Here is my list of cubes and cube-related puzzles.

Solutions to the Rubik's Cubes and alike

For those interested in solutions, here are two lists with more than 750 solutions of my private collection. Solutions to 2x2x2 cubes, 3x3x3 cubes, 4x4x4 cubes, 5x5x5 cubes, pyraminx, barrel..... (lists updated 13.12.2021)

29.9.2006 - Great News! I have a 7x7x7 cube!

From left to right: Krell 5x5x5 cube, Acryl magnetic 3x3x3, black plastic 5x5x5 and white plastic 5x5x5 by Mr. Verdes, black plastic 7x7x7 and two 6x6x6 cubes by Mr. Verdes. In my hands a white plastic 7x7x7.
Thank you, Mr Verdes! I get younger and younger with the invention you made!

June 2008: The V-cubes are finally available
5x5x5 black plastic / 5x5x5 white plastic / 6x6x6 white plastic and 7x7x7 white plastic!

Puzzle meeting events like
IPP 28 in Prague 2008, Dutch Cube Day 13+14.10.2007 in Eindhoven, German Cube Day 28.4.2007 in Gütersloh, Luxembourgish inventor and record holder who built fully functional Rubik's cubes out of matches and cardboard, and more

25.6.2005 - I have a 6x6x6 cube!

Look at my gallery (scroll down to 6x6x6 cubes) to see some pics or click the above photo to see some moves on the 6x6x6.
And more nxnxn cubes to come soon, where n > 6.
Mr Βερδές, a Greek inventor, has patented a new system that makes it possible to construct these cubes.

Have a look at his "V-Cubes" site now and enjoy!

The only club still existing and still publishing a regular newsletter is the Nederlandse Kubus Club (NKC). At first in Dutch, the newsletter is published in English since members from all over the world did subscribe. Though the cube is not forgotten, the newsletter covers other puzzles as well. Submissions for Cubism for Fun (CFF) should be sent to Rik van Grol, .

In issue #25 of CFF I published an article "Ten Years of Cubic Mags".

From the beginning of 1980, a mailing-list had been established at MIT. The archive of the list was available via anonymous ftp at cube-lovers.

Mirror of the cube-lovers archive from MIT

Since the archives are no longer available at the ftp-site of the MIT, I am hosting a copy from 2002 at my server.
The last entry is from 'der Mouse' from 27.01.2000.
I have also mirrored the /contrib directory of the archive.

an interesting French site by Guillaume who offers a solution for the nxnxn cube. The methods for the 3x3x3 through to the 5x5x5 are shown, but the algorithms are the same for the Olympic Cubes f.i. :-))

Frank Tiex' cubecorner. "I hope it is a valuable and helpful site to keep dates and details on all the items created in the near and former past. Everybody's invited to add new puzzles, content and pictures." Have a look, you won't be disappointed!

Michael Reid's Rubik's cube page is here. Michael has very valuable information on his pages, quick to download and up-to-date. His here Ton Dennenbroek Rubik's Puzzle Building, The art of speedcubing and more!

The Virtual Puzzle Museum by Denny Dedmore had been taken over by cube enthusiast Joshua Bell. Since July 2002 the puzzlemuseum is developped and hosted by Sandy Thompson. Sandy is
Joshua has a very complete page on Magic Polyhedra* Patents. Two great places to visit!

Rubik's 'Tesseract' (KAMACK H.J./KEANE T.R.;The Rubik tesseract;Newark;1982) is online at last. It is called Magic cube 4D by its authors Melinda Green, Don Hatch, Roice Nelson and E. Jay Berkenbilt.
You may download the 'Tesseract' paper here or from the authors page above.
For all those who want to go even farther, here is a 3^5 computer puzzle which extends the 4D tesseract puzzle (MagicCube4D) another dimension by Roice Nelson and Charlie Nevill.
[Update 24.11.2009]This note is to let you know that we've recently updated our 4D Rubik's cube to version 4.0. ... our new version supports a whole zoo of other beautiful 4D puzzle shapes besides just the cube.

My small pretty patterns page.

A solution to square-1 can be found here.

Jaap Scherphuis has a great puzzle page. I spent hours and hours there: dozens and dozens of solutions to most of all available interlocking puzzles from the 2x2x2 to square-1 and Tsukuda's Square . You will be delighted!

Where to buy Rubik's Cubes

You can buy very good "made in Taiwan" clones from me. (all the boxed cubes are sold (1,900 cubes)
This is what my customers said about these cubes
I have some cubes left without their boxes. (I used these to make a fake 9x9x9 cube)

has a large and unique collection of brain teasers & puzzles for sale. In addition they also carry chess, mechanical banks, puzzle books, magic trick books, boomerangs, etc.
Uwe Mèffert is the inventor of the 5x5x5 cube (Professor cube) and I have experienced a very good service when buying from him.

I have a small puzzle shop in Germany, says Hendrik. It is a nice shop and he sells from the cube to the skewb, at affordable prices. Here is a list of the puzzles available (22.12.1999):
Rubiks Cube Rubiks Magic Rubiks Pocket Cube Rubiks Micro Cube Rubiks Darth Maul Rubiks Minicube Pyraminx Megaminx Impossiball Skewb Professor Cube Plastic Tiles Cube Mini Cube Giant Cube Octagon Mickey Donald Dogic Mini Pyramid Mini Skewb Cube21 / Square-1 (tchech version)

and some other, non-cube puzzles:
Rubiks Snake Rubiks Triamid Rubiks Tangle BaseBall GlobeBall Mozaika Turn Stile Triple Cross Top Spin Back Spin Magic Nude Magic8 Duo Masterball USA Masterball BrainBall Iqube Kaos Drehholz Tricky Disky Sonic Ball Space Cubes Hungarian Globe Mini Creative Ball Mini FootBall Rashkey 1/2/3

I am still interested in getting solution book(lets) I do not yet have. Don't hesitate to e-mail me.
Once upon a time... there were some cube-related magazines. In 1991 CFF published an article by myself entitled 'Ten Years of Cubic Mags'.
The best solution I know of so far for square-1 is in the pilot edition of Puzzle World. The solution is by L.E. Hordern.

"Rubik's Cube: The Ultimate Solution" (mirror on helm.lu) uses a method unlike any other I have seen either on or off the internet, says Philip Marshall It uses only two series (a four turn series places edge pieces and an eight turn series places corner pieces) and completes a scrambled cube in an average of 65 moves.
On June 28th, 1999, Philip informed me that "I now have solutions for all three of Rubik's cubes on the internet." All solutions to be found above.

Someone has expanded on Philipp's method and gives clarifications here at his blog. His blog has video tutorials to 50+ puzzles, including many of the new "crazy" type puzzles.

Ernő Rubik himself has opened a page on the web. Well, in fact he has nothing to do with the site, just giving his name. They sell official cubes and a Java cube and information on his other puzzles with solving hints can be found there.

Discussion Forums Worldwide

Twistypuzzles (international)

Spanish (very good)

French

World Cube Association Forum (sign in compulsory)

Ernő Rubik & Georges Helm

David Singmaster & Georges Helm

Uwe Mèffert & Georges Helm

Panagiotis Verdes & Georges Helm

Tony Fisher & Georges Helm

Georges Helm & Peter Sebestény

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This is what I found in my e-mail box on July 23d, 1998:

Congratulations! Your page: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Georges_Helm/cubeold.htm (now http://webplaza.pt.lu/public/geohelm/myweb/cubeold.htm) has been selected to receive a Links2Go Key Resource award in the Cube topic. The Links2Go Key Resource award is both exclusive and objective. Fewer than one page in one thousand will ever be selected for inclusion. Further, unlike most awards that rely on the subjective opinion of "experts," many of whom have only looked at tens or hundreds of thousands of pages in bestowing their awards, the Links2Go Key Resource award is completely objective and is based on an analysis of millions of web pages. During the course of our analysis, we identify which links are most representative of each of the thousands of topics in Links2Go, based on how actual page authors, like yourself, index and organize links on their pages. In fact, the KeyResource award is so exclusive, even we don't qualify for it (yet ;)! (...Due to costs, the Links2Go search engine has been shutdown as of August 1st, 2002...)

Last updated on December 3d, 2024.