Yale Offering Class on How To Solve Cube

The Rubik's Cube started out as a game. Then a cult developed and a rash of books told how to solve the puzzle. Now a Yale University professor is teaching a course on how to solve the multicolored cube.

Roger E. Howe '66, professor of mathematics at Yale, is teaching "A Seminar on the Magic Cube" there this semester. Twenty students are taking the newly offered class, Howe said yesterday.

"I'm using the cube as a method of teaching mathematical group theory since the solution of the cube is based on it," Howe said.

The cube has been used to illustrate group theory in Harvard courses, but it has not been used as the basis for an entire course, David B. Mumford, professor of Mathematics said yesterday. "It could possibly be the germ for a math tutorial, though," Mumford added.

Billion Squared

Group theory involves transforming the positions of objects in space without changing their shapes, Howe said, adding that group theory gives structure and organization to the cube's 43 billion billion possible positions. The cube is solvable because this structure exists, Howe said.

Courses such as Howe's in the Yale seminar program are more flexible and experimental than courses in the regular curriculum. Howe said. If the cube seminar is successful, it could be turned into a regular course, he added.