Rubik’s Cube legend Max Park has made history once again by breaking the world record for fastest time to solve a 3x3x3 cube.
The 21-year-old American managed to get the job done in just 3.13 seconds, which is 0.34 seconds quicker than the previous record, which was set by Chinese cuber Yusheng Du back in 2018.
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That’s rapid.
Park – who is one of the biggest names in speedcubing – set the new world best time at the Pride in Long Beach 2023 event in California on June 11.
Leading up the event, Max’s fastest recorded time ever was 3.63 seconds, just marginally behind Yusheng’s 3.47.
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In terms of this event, 3.13 is a massive leap, even if it is mere milliseconds.
The reason Max is so well-respected and revered in the speedcubing world is because this is far from his first record.
To be fair, he pretty much holds all of them, with the single solve and average – where five times are recorded and averaged – records for the 4x4x4 cube, the 5x5x5 cube, the 6x6x6 cube AND the 7x7x7 cube.
It’s a lot of cubes for one man.
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What’s more, he also held the 3x3x3 average solve world record jointly with Poland’s Tymon Kolasiński until very recently, when their equal times of 4.86 seconds were overtaken by nine-year-old Chinese prodigy Yiheng Wang, who clocked in a time of 4.69 seconds.
In that event, the cubers must solve five pre-scrambled cubes, before their fastest and slowest times are discarded and an average is created from the remaining three times.
Those in the know within this strange and exciting world believe that with youngsters from China joining relative veterans such as Park, we could be ushering in a golden age of Rubik’s Cube solving.
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Yiheng’s Chinese compatriot Ruihang Xu is one of only a handful of people to have solved a cube in under three seconds on camera, although this doesn’t count to the record as he did it outside a World Cube Association (WCA) event.
The WCA ratifies all times, before Guinness World Records then recognises them.
Xu, 14, and his nine-year-old rival Yiheng also met in the final of the Singapore Championship this year, with Yiheng emerging on top.
Max is an inspiration to neurodivergent people - and others - having been diagnosed with autism.
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His parents believe that speedcubing has been ‘good therapy’ for him.
Shawn and Miki Park said: “There was a time when Max couldn’t even open water bottles, but he showed interest in solving Rubik’s Cubes.”
Now, he’s an official ambassador for Rubik’s, and even starred in a 2020 Netflix documentary called The Speed Cubers.
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His motto is ‘don’t think, just solve’.
We could all learn something from that.
Topics: Sport, US News, Weird, World News, Guinness World Records
Tom Wood