the Rubik's cube world record has just been broken
it is now 4.74 seconds
check it out
that is the fastest any human has ever solve a Rubik's Cube
it was set on the weekend just gone
when I was lucky enough to actually be at the UK Rubik's championship
where this record was not set
it was actually set at a competition in Indonesia by a guy called Mats Valk
who is from the Netherlands
but he didn't come to the UK championship
because actually studying in Singapore at the moment
not that I'm bitter I missed out or anything
and what a phenomenal time it is
under 5 seconds
he managed to solve a Rubik's Cube and set the world record faster than I can tell you
that someone has set a new world record
so check it out this is my introduction from the beginning of my video you're currently enjoying
and this is Mats setting the world record watch
the Rubik's Cube world record has just been broken
it is now 4.74 seconds
see the Rubik's Cube is solve faster than I can tell you about it
now if you want to know how it was actually done
this is the actual scramble that he started with at the beginning of the solve
this is what he was faced with when he set the world record
and at the end of the video I'm gonna have a breakdown
of how he actually solve this Rubik's Cube in such a tiny tiny amount of time
but before then I thought it would be nice to actually have a talk
to the man who set the record
and I'm actually joined here by Mats Valk
hello Mats how are you doing
I'm good good thanks how are you
I'm OK I'm OK
you had the more successful Rubik's Cube competition over the weekend than I do
so have you been doing none stop media since then
yeah I had a lot of media inquiries
like from all around the world
but I also have two test last week which I had to prepare for a little more
so it was completely chaos and only couple hours of sleep every night
but it's a good fun
did you have to fly to an interview
or you just did them all over the Skype
or did you have to say "I'm sorry I've got a test"
I stayed here at Singapore
I was flying back on Monday but we missed our flight
because we had a couple of beers on the Sunday night
and we woke up too late
but like I've been doing a lot...
so a post Rubik's Cube celebration were too much
but yeah I think a lot of interview I was tired by calling
and also some just like over the email
so now when you actually broke the record
were you going into the championship thinking you know
"I think I'm at record breaking level"
or did it come as a surprise to you as well
it actually came as a big big surprise
it's obviously the world record and it's not easy to beat that
just if it was easy then
It would already be broken
already be beaten yeah
so I think on the earth
there are like maybe 10 people who are capable of breaking the world record
and after that it's just a matter of going to a competition
like being in the right shape
like having a little bit of luck
and doing it dead right on spot
and I was fortunate enough to do that last weekend
so when you got the scramble you were given
did you look at it and go I'm in for a shot with a very fast time
or did it just work out very nicely towards the end
uh both
to say you probably know that it's all like you solve a cross first
on that scramble
like I usually start with blue
but I look a bit to the other colors
and it turned out that green is only three moves away
from the cross being solved which is
yeah so it's a three twist cross
yeah it is pretty nice
and I was already able to see I think two pairs
during the inspection
so that's like not bad at all
like you can do like maybe 15 moves after the cross like straight away
so I knew it was gonna be a pretty decent time
and I have a little bit of luck
'cause I was able to force skip the OLL
like at the 6th or the 7th step
and I was lucky with the PLL skip at the end
I recreated your solve
'cause I looked up online what the scramble was
at the end
I... were you looking ahead and saving moves
'cause I was like well hang on that corner and edge hasn't gone in yet
but you pocket it somewhere else
yes
knowing you can skip orientating the final layer
exactly
If you put it in at a different time
that's the difference between
'cause a lot of people practice and get down to about
30 seconds on a Rubik's Cube or possibly don't
but to get sub10 seconds I mean sub5 seconds time
you've gotta be thinking on the fly about
being you know doing things slightly different earlier
to set up some efficiency later
yeah yeah yeah but still
you don't have to do like very fancy stuff like I did
like do a forced OLL skip
that's not required at all to be sub10
like just with all the regular algs
you should be able to easily get to eight seconds
so when did you first get into Rubik's Cubing?
like what got you to your first competition?
so I started when I was 11 when 9 years ago
I was still in my last year of elementary school
and my teacher she brought a cube in the class
and I was interested I thought it was like a impossible challenge
so I was like pushing myself to learn that
and then after a week I was able to solve the
first two layer by myself without any help
and then I went to my mom
'cause I wasn't able to solve the last layer
and it turned out she still had the book from the 80'
that (inaudible) how to solve a Rubik's Cube
so she gave that to me
and I started reading and reading
and it took me about a week I think
before I was able to solve the Rubik's Cube
and it was just like as slow as anyone else
I think it's like 10 minutes or maybe even worse
and after that I was just kept practicing kept practicing
and I kind of knew that there were Rubik's Cube competitions
but at that moment I was not fully aware of that
and then it was
like sort of like an accident that I went to this puzzle affair
and it happened that the Dutch National Championship was held over there
yeah and I didn't want to enter first
but there were some people at the competition
like they convinced me to eventually do it
may you know actually Erik Akkersdijk
he was the guy who had the world record at 2008
with 7.08 seconds
yes I met him at that competition
and then he convinced me of actually competing at a competition
I mean he didn't know what he was starting
you actually have you own (inaudible) of Rubik's Cube
I do yeah this is the one I'm using
how did that happened
it's a Valk3
alright that (inaudible) name
so I get invited last year to come to the Chinese Championship
by this company called "QiYi Mofangge"
and then I went to the factory they offered me a lot of good talks
and then they came up with the idea of making the Valk3
like my Rubik's Cube
so we discuss a lot on like what in my opinion would be the perfect Rubik's Cube
and they sent me a couple of designs
and I said well this is good this is bad this is good
they sent a couple more design
and it takes quite a long time to make those mods
they took it like five month after the first design
and get it actually release
but now I'm really happy how it turned out
I used this cube to set the world record
so that's really good I think
and I finally got
I know how you feel about getting stuff made
'cause I run a website called Maths Gear
where we make ridiculous mathematical toys
it's a long slow process getting stuff made
but I had just ordered
I got some Valk3 cubes
that will put on Maths Gear
you did?
So I only get a couple
but I thought if people watched this and they wants to get one...
that would be great
and now I stocked your cube
you are the only cube on Maths Gear
YEAH!!
that's what a honor you know
you thought winning the world record was exciting my goodness
being... being on Maths Gear...
I was about to say that like I will sent you couple of these cubes
but since you've already ordered down
Ahh! could have gotten it for free unbelievable
ahh, one day
so thank you very much Mats Valk
for spending some time explaining the Rubik's Cube
thanks for having me it was good
see you soon
bye cheers
so how did Mats take this scrambled Rubik's Cube
and solve it so efficiently?
sadly even if you take the footage from his solve
and slow it down to one quarter of it's normal speed
he's still moving too fast for the video to be that insightful
instead I've done some research online
that's how I found the exact scramble he started with
I've also found the list
of the individual twists he did to complete the solve
so this is my breakdown
of how you solve a Rubik's Cube in under five seconds
if you like to play along
this is a Rubik's Cube with the green facing you
and red on the right
this is now the scramble we have to do
if you aren't familiar with the notation
you've got B that represent the back face
F for front, R for right, L for left face
finally U for up, and D for the down face
the way you see B2
that means you're gonna get the back face and rotate it twice
we've now got F2 so it's the front face twice
and then when you just got one letter D
it mean you rotate that face in the clockwise direction
so D is a single clockwise move there
you've now got [sped up audio]
ahh now back is a single where you see a dash
means you go anticlockwise
it's a single anticlockwise move on the back
[sped up audio]
what you end up here
is the scramble that he actually faced in the competition
so if you have a look at the mat
you can see it's positioned like, there we go like that
that's the same arrangement
OK now we can actually do the solve
so he started with the orange one facing him
blue on the top and white over on the right
we're gonna do the left anticlockwise a single twist
we then the the down clockwise
and then the right a complete two rotation
you think what does that achieve?
have a look on the bottom there's a cross
so this is the cross set up
and not only are these green cross ones in the position
they're already lined up with the center ones on all the other faces
so in those three twists
he's already got the first step completed
there are now four steps and each one of those steps
fills in a bottom corner and matching edge
so we'll do the first one first
so that is a [sped up audio]
so that corner pieces is now been put in to match the bottom
and that edge piece is in there as well
the same thing should happen when we do the next one
I'm just blindly following along
[sped up audio]
oh now the lower case "d"
means instead of rotating down anticlockwise by itself
you actually rotate it with the layer above it as well
so you get that
[sped up audio]
and if we have a look around again
we will see ah over here here it is
so now that so as well as the first corner over there
we got this corner put in place
and the next edge up
up next that "y" means we have to re-orientate the cube clockwise
in the vertical y axis like so
[sped up audio]
so we have a look there we go alright
so we've now got those are in, those are in
those are in
all we have to do are the last two over here
so right let's do that
[sped up audio]
we should have all four of this
those are in place, those are in place, those are in place and
oh they're not
now this is what threw me the first time I followed these steps
because I expected to see the yellow red green pair
put in over here
they're not here all the way around over here
there they are what are they doing there?
they should be in here
well
in this incredibly clever move
Mats has paired them up
he also manage to pair these up
and he has made he's future life a whole lot easier
so let's carry on with the steps as shown
so his next moves R
and watch this, this is incredible
so he's gone R' there
U there
R', Face, Right
Face'
that all [inaudible] to come together here
U so that's a single twist over there
and then a Right
and that's pretty much it
it's now a single U and it's solved
so by not blindly putting in the fourth pair straight away
but rather by hiding it somewhere else
he's able to set up and save a whole lot of orientating
and positioning the last layer
incredible
if you like to learn more about the competitive Rubik's Cube solving
I was actually at the UK championship
to make a Youtube video about it
so you can check that out there
if it's not available yet because we're still frantically editing it
which is pretty much the case at the moment
then you can subscribe to my channel
and you'll find out as soon as it is available
but as well as all sort of other ridiculous math related videos
quick thanks for this video
obviously thank you very much to Mats Valk for being interviewed by me
as well as letting me use the footage from his world record solve
please do check out his Youtube channel
and his Facebook I'll put the links down below
thank to the people on the Cubers subreddit
they're the ones who reverse engineer what the scramble was
and how Mats actually solved it
I'll have a link to the discussion thread around his original video down below
and finally thanks to Maths Gear
which is effectively thanking myself
and some chump called Steve Mould
so manage to get a few of the Valk3 cubes on there
if they proved popular we'll get some more in
do check it out we have loads of other fantastic math toys
:)