Lian Yunzhi grabbed an ordinary Rubik’s Cube and solved it in under five seconds. Then she did it four more times.
Her average time was a new women’s world record.
Lian Yunzhi is 6 years old.
In video of a Rubik’s Cube competition in Wuhan, China, held on Sept. 13, Yunzhi, wearing a headband with a red bow, picks up the 3x3x3 cube, spins it with blinding speed, then drops it onto a table, fully solved.
After some attempts, she looks up implacably. But when she pops a particularly good time — under 4 seconds in one case — she breaks into a smile and claps her hands.
Yunzhi’s average time for five solves, dropping the fastest and slowest, was 4.52 seconds, according to the World Cube Association, which governs competitions and tracks record times for mechanical puzzles like Rubik’s Cubes. Three days later in Guangzhou, she lowered the record to 4.27 seconds.
The men’s record is 3.51 seconds, and is held by Yiheng Wang, who is 12.
Speed cubers, as competitive Rubik’s Cube solvers are known, study patterns and learn move combinations that will help them solve more quickly. But at the elite level, the key is “Don’t think, just solve,” Max Park, an American speed cuber, told The New York Times.
Cube records were once largely held by teenagers and people in their early 20s. In recent years, however, preteens have started taking over the top spots.
Many are from China, which has schools that teach speedy Rubik’s Cube solving.
Cube enthusiasts also explain the plummeting age of champions by pointing to kids’ enthusiasm for the puzzle, their ability to learn quickly and that they simply have more time to practice. Yunzhi practices two to three hours a day, her mother told Red Star News of Chengdu, China, via Agence France-Presse.
There are records for other, more challenging cubes as well. The women’s record for the more complex 4x4x4 cube is 23 seconds and change. Too easy? Then learn to solve a 7x7x7 and try to break the record of 1:49.
Oh, and the Rubik’s Cube has also been solved in under 20 seconds blindfolded.
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