In this video I'm going to show you how to solve a 4x4 Rubik's Cube
Check out my other videos showing you how to solve a 2x2 Rubik's cube, a 3x3, a 4x4 and even a 5x5
So once you've completed these centerpieces, the next step is to start pairing up these edge pieces
It's called edge pairing
Like these centerpieces represent just one centerpiece on a 3x3
These two edge pieces represent one edge piece, or the only edge piece on a 3x3
So first, we need to pair these up so both pieces are the same colours
By chance we've already got one here, I didn't do this, that's just the way it worked out
But that's how we want to make all of them
So to start pairing these pieces up
Again, you'll be pleased to know there's no algorithm just yet
It's just worked on logic
There could be an algorithm at the end if you fall into parity, which happens about half of the time
Other time, you can complete them all just using this technique
But I will put it into parity even if we don't just show you how to get out of parity
But for now
The first step we want to do
We want to look for two pieces that have the same colours on so we can join those two together
And you want those two pieces on the front face
So look around your cube, see if you already have any and I do
I've got a white and a red
And up here I've got white and a red
And these are in the correct position
We want the two pieces on two separate levels
So they're at diagonal opposites
It doesn't matter if this one is here and this one is here
Or this one is here and this one is here, so long as they're diagonal
If this one was here and this other red and white one was here
Well, just how it worked out, the red would be facing us and the white would be on this side
And you wouldn't be able to bring them together
The reason we need them on separate layers is because what we do
Is you just twist the cube in the middle to bring them together like that
Now you see we've broken all our centers on this plane, so we need to repair them
Obviously if we repair them, we're separating this pair again
So we do need to move this pair out of the way
We do that just by moving it to the top
And we always have to repair our centers
However, you see these are now vertical
So if we repair our centers, we're just going to destroy these centers completely
So what do we do?
Well we need to bring this back down, except we'll be bringing this pair back down
And then we'd break them
So
We move this pair that we've just made to the top and then we move them to the front
And now that we've moved them to the front
Just here is an unmatched pair
So when we return this back down
So we make these horizontal again
We've now put an unmatched pair there and our pair remains on the top
So when we repair our centers
We repair this center, repair this center
And the pair that we split back apart is an unmatched pair anyway, so it doesn't matter
And don't worry, I'm going to repeat that process over and over
So the next step, is to look for another pair of colours
Look around see if you have any already in the right place
Quite often you wont you'll have to put them in the position yourself
It doesn't look like we've got any so
I'll do it myself
So choose a colour, I'm gonna choose this white and this orange
Just because it's nice and bright so I can find it a bit sooner
And the other one is here
So all I have to do to put this here
Remember it wants to be on the higher plane so they're not on the same level
And I can already see all I have to do is bring it up like that
Orange and white, orange and white
And then we do the same technique again
We just twist the cube
to bring this pair together
And again because we need to repair centers, we need to move it up
We need to bring these back down so we can repair them without destroying them
Turn the matched pair to the front, so we've got an uneven pair here
So when we turn this back down
We've got an uneven pair here, so when we repair our centers, it doesn't matter that we split them apart
Okay, do the same again
See if we have any more colours already in the right position
If not, we'll put them there ourselves
So choose a colour to find, I'm gonna choose orange and blue
I've got orange and blue here, quite easy to put in position, just bring it down
Orange and blue, orange and blue
This time it's the other way, this time this side's on the bottom, this side's on the top, really doesn't matter
You can do the exact same technique
Twist them together
Put them on the top, bring them to the front
Bring this face back down so these are horizontal
So we can repair our centers
And that leaves the blue and the orange on the top
And you start to fill up this top up of matched pairs
Have a quick look around see if any have fallen into the correct position so we can do it
Or we might have to put them there ourselves again
Right, I've just seen one I can do a little bit differently
See orange and green
Orange and green, they're not on the same front
But if I look, one is on the bottom one is on the top
I can just twist it twice
It's the exact same, it doesn't matter that we're twisting it once or twisting it twice
It just means we have to correct once or twice
I've twisted them together
Move them up to the top
Brought them around to the front
So when I come back down, I've brought a mixed pair down
And I've twisted it twice so I have to twist it twice again to repair my centers
Look around again
This time I've got blue and red
Blue and red, but they're on the same level so, you know that's not good
And also you can see that because red and red is both facing us
Blue, red blue, red
I need to get this down here
I can do that, just turn it up
Turn it onto the back, turn the back down
So now it's here
I can just bring it to the front
So now it's here, red, blue, red, blue
And I can just twist them together
And do what we did before
Bring it up
Put them to the front to bring an uneven pair down and bring them down to repair our centers
However
I've just brought a different matched pair down, one that I matched earlier
Because we're starting to fill up
And then I if correct my centers I'm breaking this previously matched pair
So what do we do?
I'll go back to the beginning
This is my blue and red that we're just making
And when I put them up you see I'm bringing this matched pair round
So we can see whatever is on the back gets brought round
To here
So..
When we've got a new pair to put to the top first take a look what's on the back
See, I've got this matched pair already on the back
And if you've got a matched pair that will end up getting brought round to where this currently matched pair is
And we don't want to break a matched pair or else we're just defeating the object
Matching a pair to un-match another one
You're not progressing any further
And it's very easy, you just turn the top
To put an unmatched pair there
And now that matched pair is here, but don't worry, that one won't get broken
The only one that will get broken is this one and this doesn't match anyway
Now we've moved this one to here, we've moved an uneven pair to the back
You watch, now we bring them up
Bring them to the front and now we've got an unmatched pair that I'm going to bring down
And remember they are what we would have brought before, now they're there
And the unmatched pair
When we repair our centers get separated, it doesn't matter because they're not matched anyway
So just be aware of what is on the back
At the beginning it doesn't matter because you haven't got many matched anyway
But as you start to match them you've got to be aware of what's on the back
Let's find another one
So it doesn't look like we've got any in position ready so, I'm gonna look for orange and yellow
Just keep my thumb on it so I know where it is
Right, so that's here
We can turn that that way so I've got yellow orange, yellow orange
I'm just looking to show you something
Orange, yellow orange, yellow
Bring them together
Remember what I said from before we've got a look on the back
See if I we've got a matched pair
In this case we've got a matched pair
We've got much pair here, we've got a matched pair here
But this one isn't matched
Now what would happen if this was matched, this was matched, this was matched AND this was matched?
So we didn't have an unmatched pair to replace it with
Remember this is the one we want to put to the top
Just turn it over and have a look
This now becomes a top, and have a look to see if there's any unmatched pairs on this side
And there is, there's two
This side there was only one, but I'm pretending there wasn't any
And we can use this side
This side is paired
So I'll put an unmatched pair to the back
Remember these are the one's I'm putting up
Now I can move this new one to the top
Bring it around, I've got an unmatched pair
Bring it down, unmatched pair will get broken when I repair the centers
Take another look around to see if we have any more already in position
So we don't so we're gonna have to put them in position ourselves, so I will choose
I don't know green and white, the other green and white is here
Green white, green white, well they don't both want to be on this row, so I need to change that
So I've got white green, white green
As before, bring them together
Check my top
This one is a matching pair, so is this one, so is this one, so is this one
So I can't bring them up here because they're all matching
So I can just turn it over
This one matches, this one matches, this one matches
And we do.. we have one more that doesn't match
So I can put this to the back, here's my pair
Bring it to the top
Bring it round
Bring the unmatched pair down
And..
Those two also then match up because we only had three non matching pairs left
All the edges have matched up just doing that technique, and sometimes that happens
Quite often you'll get this where you can just go through and complete all the edges
Just by doing that one technique no algorithms, however, sometimes you end up with this..
So sometimes you end up with this, we've just got two left
One two three four complete and the bottom one two three four completed
And the back two are completed, so we've only got two, so what happens..
When you bring this red and green to meet this red and green, for example
You don't have a mixed pair on the top
You don't have a mixed pair on the bottom
and you don't have any other mixed pairs you've only got this one and this one
And there's no way you can put this one on to the top or the bottom
Because it needs to match here
And then if you put this to the top, no matter what we did
We'd bring another matching pair down and we'd break that matching pair
We're stuck in an infinite loop, we make a pair
We make that pair, bring it up and we'd always bring a different pair back down
And break that pair when we have to repair our centers
We're stuck
This is called a parity [error]
We're in an infinite loop of making a pair and breaking a pair every time
If you've got three left it works out, like it did just now
But if you get this
We've got a parity, so we have to use an algorithm to get out of this parity
Now, we've always been putting one on the top, one on the bottom in a diagonal
See, this is green and white, this is green and white in diagonal as well
These last two colours do match
To do this algorithm
First we need to put the same colours on the same row
So this is a red and green
This one wants to be the red and green
So, turn that
So we can turn them the other way up
So we need it like this, red green, red green
And on the bottom, green white, green white
So this one wants to match with this one, this one was to match with this one
And then we use an algorithm to match these two pairs
This algorithm is
(Dd) R Fi U Ri F (Dd)i
Making sure that these are on the front face when we do it
And on the left and right
And then we go
(Dd) R Fi U Ri F (Dd)i
And there it has joined the two pieces
We've got red and green now both here
White and green both here
And that has got us out of this party
As I said, sometimes you don't need this
because sometimes you can complete them all doing what we did before
And sometimes you end up in parity where you need to use this algorithm
Okay, so now we've completed the edge pieces and the centerpieces
The next step is to start to complete the Rubik's Cube as though we was completing a 3x3