# Worst way to solve Rubik's in one algorithm

If you apply the same algorithm over and over again the cube will be solved.
I want to know what algorithm is the worst one (the one with the longest cycle)
I have found RU (cycle of 60 times)
I have found one of 72 but I can't remember it

• Cycling RU solves the cube in 60 times? I didn’t know that was possible – Gabe Dec 12 '19 at 16:18

It seems like you are trying to find

An element of the Rubik's cube group whose order is as large as possible.

One such example that satisfies this is

$$(RU^2D^{-1}BD^{-1})$$ which has the maximum attainable order of $$1260$$

In particular,

Starting from a solved cube, you need to apply this algorithm $$1260$$ times to get back to the beginning.

As mentioned by armb in the comments, there is a good answer here discussing the maximum orders for an $$n \times n \times n$$ Rubiks cube.

• Can you prove that? – pgp1 Dec 11 '19 at 19:46
• @pgp1 you can do it yourself - simply apply the algorithm 1260 times! :P – Quintec Dec 12 '19 at 1:14
• "apply the algorithm 1260 times" proves it has order 1260, it doesn't prove that that is the maximum possible order. For the latter, see math.stackexchange.com/questions/2392906/… – armb Dec 12 '19 at 11:06
• @armb This is very useful, I may add this link to the answer. – hexomino Dec 12 '19 at 11:08

There are a ton of ways to get the cube from solved state to solved state. One way is (R B D)x ~60 which I find quite interesting. Since the cube is very symmetric, there are a lot of these cases.