Rubik's Revenge

The original Rubik's Revenge can be taken apart without much difficulty, typically by turning one side through a 30° angle and prying an edge upward until it dislodges.

The original mechanism designed by Sebestény uses a grooved ball to hold the centre pieces in place.

[2] The Eastsheen version of the cube, which is slightly smaller at 6cm to an edge, has a completely different mechanism.

The central spindle is specially shaped to prevent it from becoming misaligned with the exterior of the cube.

Seven of the corners can be independently rotated, and the orientation of the eighth depends on the other seven, giving 8!×37 combinations.

Assuming that the four centres of each colour are indistinguishable, the number of permutations is reduced to 24!/(246) arrangements.

This is because all 24 possible positions and orientations of the first corner are equivalent because of the lack of fixed centres.

Some versions of the cube have one of the centre pieces marked with a logo, distinguishing it from the other three of the same colour.

Since there are four distinguishable positions for this piece, the number of permutations is quadrupled, yielding 2.96×1046 possibilities.

The Yau methods starts by solving two centers on opposite sides.

For instance, solving the corners and edges first and the centres last would avoid such parity errors.

Doing so mixes a variety of techniques and is heavily reliant on commutators for the final steps.

[10] The world record for fastest average of five solves (excluding fastest and slowest solves) is 19.38 seconds, also set by Max Park of the United States on 19 March 2023 at Arizona Speedcubing Spring 2023 in San Jose, California, with the times of (17.60), 18.49, 19.37, (23.80) and 20.28 seconds.

[11] The world record for fastest blindfolded solve is 51.96 seconds (including inspection), set by Stanley Chapel of the United States on 28th January 2023 at 4BLD in a Madison Hall 2023, in Wisconsin, United States.

[12] The record for mean of three blindfolded solves is 1 minute, 6.46 seconds (including inspection), also set by Stanley Chapel at PBQ Oxford 2024, with the times of 1:01.14, 1:04.03 and 1:14.20.

[13] Games included Rubik's Revenge in their "Top 100 Games of 1982", finding that it helped to solve the original Rubik's Cube that the center pieces did not move, but noted "That's not true of this Supercube, which has added an extra row of subcubes in all three dimensions.