God's number - Rubik's cube

In the world of the Rubik's Cube, God's Number is the maximum number of moves required to solve any scrambled 3×3×3 cube.

The answer is:

God's Number = 20

This means that every possible Rubik's Cube position can be solved in 20 moves or fewer, if you use the most efficient solution.

🧩 Some cube states can be solved in just a few moves.

🧩 Many require more.

🧩 A small number of especially difficult positions require the full 20 moves.

The term "God's Number" comes from the idea that an all-knowing being ("God") would always know the shortest possible solution from any starting position.

In 2010, a team of researchers led by Tomas Rokicki, working with others including Herbert Kociemba, used massive computer calculations to prove that every one of the cube's approximately 43 quintillion possible positions can be solved in 20 moves or less.

To put that number in perspective:

$43,252,003,274,489,856,000$

That's over 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible arrangements of a standard Rubik's Cube!

A famous position known as the Superflip (where all 12 edge pieces are flipped but otherwise in place) is one of the configurations that requires the full 20 moves to solve.

Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model