A surprising trend has arisen, bringing back the simple, yet not so simple puzzle called the Rubik’s Cube.

Senior Jared Thom has been a big fan of the cube for a long time now.

“I think they’ve always been around, and they will always be around,” Thom said. “Puzzles are timeless. If you see a lot of people get back into puzzles like Rubik’s Cubes, it’s because people want to challenge themselves and see if they can do it too.”

Thom got his first Rubik’s Cube when he was in the sixth grade.

“I got a Rubik’s Cube for Christmas the past year, and I didn’t mess with it for a long time,” Thom said. “But one day, out of the blue, I just decided I wanted to look up how to do it on YouTube.”

It took Thom about a week to get his first cube solved. For others, the learning process may vary.

“You have to learn the notation, learn the algorithm, and you have to just try and not mess up the moves,” Thom said. “It just takes a while. But once you start solving it, your time just gets progressively faster. And once you memorize the moves, it just gets easier and easier.”

While others may take weeks to solve the puzzle, for some, it only takes less than a minute.

“My best time was 42 seconds for a three by three by three cube,” Thom said.

People commonly have the misconception that the cube is solved by sides, but it is actually solved by layers.

“If you want to learn it by video, learn the notations first,” Thom said. “Then the algorithms would get a lot easier to do.”

Learning how to solve one takes persistence.

“They are a challenge, and a lot of people don’t know how to do them,” Thom said. “So when you can solve one quickly, people think you’re amazing.”

16szhang@usd489.com