Even with some help from the internet, it can take some people hours, if not days or weeks, to solve a Rubik's Cube. But it took Max Park just 3.13 seconds.
The 21-year-old Korean American prodigy shattered the previous world record by 0.34 seconds at the Pride in Long Beach 2023 event in California earlier this month.
Before this, Max's fastest solve of a 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube was 3.63 seconds. While still astonishingly fast, it put him in second place behind China's Yesheng Du, who set the previous world record of 3.47 seconds in 2018. But now, it's Max on top.
Despite being diagnosed with autism at the age of two, Max is no stranger to breaking records. The Guinness World Records hall of famer also holds several other speedcubing records, including the fastest times in solving the 4x4x4 cube, 5x5x5 cube, 6x6x6 cube and the 7x7x7 cube, according to Guinness World Records. He also holds the record for the fastest average time to solve a Rubik's Cube one-handed.
Max showed an interest in speedcubing at a very young age as a way to strengthen his skills in a therapeutic way. He would use "cubing workouts" to help fine tune his motor skills, better understand communication, and to comprehend non-verbal cues.
"There was a time when Max couldn't even open water bottles," his parents told Guinness World Records. "But he showed interest in solving Rubik's Cubes."
At just 10 years old, Max's talent really shocked his parents when he won a speedcubing competition against college graduates from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and California Institute of Technology.
Since then, Max hasn't let up, emerging as a prominent figure in the cubing community and being sponsored to travel the globe to compete in various competitions and championships. His story was highlighted in the 2020 Netflix documentary, "The Speed Cubers."
He's also introduced an all new trend in the speedcubing world, called "AO100" — or "average over 100 solves." It's a technique in which competitors solve a cube 100 times, remove the fastest and slowest times and calculate the average speed of the remaining 98 times. It's now used to consider how fast someone is in the cubing community — similar to how a handicap in golf represents an individual's average score.
The World Cube Association, which oversees hundreds of cube-solving competitions around the world, says Max has participated in nearly 150 of them, amassing numerous gold medals and other awards.
However, if Max continues to live by his motto, "Don't think, just solve," it's only a matter of time before he breaks even more world records.
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