How to solve the rubik cube

 This has been such a fascinating journey.

When I told my friend about this recent solve the rubik project, she said that I was keeping my brain sharp. I can see how you can pick up a rubik cube and solve one piece and go back to what you were doing just like a huge jig saw puzzle which you know will involve many retreats and advances.

Each interaction with it, I am learning something new.

I have come to the third layer, making a plus. I know that from here, it is an algo again, which I can learn like Emily. But I want to solve it the math way, where you flip one edge of a done face and then do the reverse. So today I was working on flipping an edge but of an unmade face. When I tried that on a done face, it fell flat. But what I have learnt is how easy all the othe rthings have become, especially making the face and even in that, removing pieces that I dont need and also recognizing part done algos especially the fixing corners of a face. One more step away in figuring that elusive way of flipping that edge of a made face.

I asked a rubik cube owner for some tips and he suggested trying a face first. When I asked him if he knew of the flipping an edge piece method - he said that you just have to try it out.

This gets better and better. What mathematician Burkard Polster was trying to teach was a simple trick to design your own solution to rubik's cube. This is by decomposition of the complex problem into set of 4 moves of flipping edges and corners and moving edges and corners, which can then be translated to any kind of similar puzzle.

I now know how to flip edges. I am moving edges now. Yesterday after flipping an edge and realising that a twist is needed and found that two edges would be flipped. Now I understand the commutator the professor was referring to.

Moving edges is easy to understand through this move of the corner piece in between as going up.