Date: 1 Mar 85 08:54:47 PST (Friday)
From: Hoffman.es@XEROX.ARPA

Anyone have a written solution algorithm for the 5-by-5-by-5 cube? I
got mine a year and a half or so ago from Meffert in Hong Kong by mail
order. After a couple of weeks of just trying out "pretty patterns" on
it, I finally got up the nerve to mess it up. Well, of course, it's
never been altogether solved since. (I was never a great cube wizard.)
It sits on display as the base of my cube tower, with those few nagging
cubies out of place. I haven't touched it in many months.

It took me about half an hour to solve the 4x4x4 by generalizing
techniques for the 3x3x3. I think many of us convinced ourselves that
the 5x5x5 is just a similar extension. The generalization is one of
those "Aha!" insights.

Unfortunately for me, I've never seen a 5x5x5 to prove myself.