Local College Student Is A King Of The Rubik's Cube

Thirteen seconds.

That’s the average amount of time it takes Tom Smith to solve a Rubik’s Cube. The William Paterson University student regularly enters national cube-solving competitions.

“There hassn’t been a day where I haven’t solved at least one Rubik’s Cube since I started,” Smith told the Pioneer Times, William Paterson University’s newspaper.

He finished 145th out of 500 contestants at the U.S. Nationals in 2014 and eighth at a competition in Connecticut last February.

Smith started solving Rubik’s Cubes when his mom brought him home one when he was kid. After a few weeks of watching YouTube videos and taking notes, he could solve one in 20 minutes.

Eventually, he got faster and faster. And he hasn’t stopped since.

“I was doing it in two minutes at one point and I thought this is good, this is my top speed. I’m really happy I can do it in two minutes,” he said. “Then I saw the World Champion at the time on the Ellen Show and he did it in about 20 seconds and I was like, ‘I got some work to do’.”

The Rubik’s Cube is the best selling puzzle of all time. An estimated 350 million of them have been sold since 1980.

The world record for solving the puzzle is 5.55. There are said to be 43 quintillion permutations - the number of possible positions the cube can hold.