Many people struggle to solve the 40-year-old Rubik's Cube, but current world champions do it in under seven seconds.
Two world champions, Matt Valks and Feliks Zemdegs, are headed to South Africa to compete at Johannesburg and Cape Town Speedcube competitions to be held over the next two Sundays.
Valks, from Amsterdam, holds the world record for solving a standard 3x3 Rubiks cube puzzle in 5.55 seconds.
Ironically, he is colour blind.
This means he can't quickly identify the green and red cubes.
Valks said by email he “has been cubing for seven years but the funny thing is that I’’m still improving”.
Asked if it made him popular with ladies, he said: “I can't complain”.
He figured out how to solve the cube when he was 11 years old by trial and error and by reading a book his mom bought him.
Zemdegs, from Australia, holds the world record for solving the cube with an average time of 6.54 seconds.
He learnt how to solve the cube from You Tube tutorials.
Zemdegs said the fastest time he has managed to do it at home is 4,61 seconds.
Keeping up his skills takes 45 minutes a day on average.
He doesn't have the patience to teach his friends.
“I just tell them to learn from YouTube.”
Both said it was a common misperception that maths had anything to do with being quick at it.
Zemdegs said the skills needed are “basically pattern recognition, quick thinking and spatial awareness skills, problem solving skills, and finger dexterity”.
Speed Cubes spokesman Kim Katz said in a statement: “The record for a person using feet to solve the cube is 25.14 seconds, the one-handed record is 9.03 seconds and the record for doing it blindfolded is 23.19 seconds”.
To enter the competition, visit www.speedcubes.co.za.
The Cape Town Science Centre and Sci-Bono will not charge entry on the days of the competition.
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