Rubik's Cube

High school (ages 12+)
Sports & Games

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/rubik-s-cube

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. How big is Rubik's Cube?43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible states
2. What is the year of conceptualization?1974
3. What is the inventor's profession?Architect and Professor
4. How many different ways can a Rubik's Cube be scrambled?There are about 43 quintillion different ways to scramble a Rubik's Cube. That's a number so big that it's hard to imagine!
5. Why is solving a Rubik's Cube hard?The puzzle is hard because the pieces can move in many ways, and the hardest scramble can need up to 20 moves to solve. That's why people study special move patterns called algorithms.

Group Theory: A branch of abstract algebra studying algebraic structures known as groups, relevant to the cube's permutations.
Permutation: An arrangement of objects in a specific order; the cube's pieces can be arranged in many permutations.
Algorithm (in computing/math): A finite sequence of well-defined, computer-implementable instructions, typically to solve a class of problems or to perform a computation.