The 3D puzzle was invented by Hungarian Erno Rubik in 1974. Photo: Flickr.com / Steve Rhodes
A Wellington man has taken a puzzle challenge to new heights, solving a Rubik's Cube he hadn't seen in 10 years entirely from memory, while blindfolded.
Tom Nelson uploaded the first video in January 2015, showing him randomising the cube and attempting to memorise it, before taping it up in a box that wasn't opened for another decade.
In January of 2025, Nelson went live on the same YouTube account with one goal - to solve the cube he had locked away years before.
With both his blindfold and a piece of cardboard blocking any chance of him seeing the cube, he solved the cube in just a minute.
"I saw someone else attempt a one-year delay," he said. "I saw that and thought I would like to do something bigger."
Despite memorisation being an essential part of the challenge, Nelson spent just six minutes creating a mental image of the cube.
Tom Nelson celebrates his 2017 world Rubik's Cube title. Photo: supplied
"I'd review [the cube] in my head every so often," he said. "For the first few weeks, it was probably every day and then it was every couple of weeks, before it was just when I felt like it."
In his original video, he acknowledged the validity of the experiment was hard to prove.
UK cubing store owner and Rubik's Cube expert Daniel Evans said there was no real way of verifying the record, "but the cubing community as a whole just trusts him on that".
He said this kind of challenge used different skills and techniques to speedcubing competitions.
"Blindfolded solving works differently, as you are trying to memorise and solve the cube as quickly as possible."
Tom has attended the Rubik's world championships twice, winning the 5x5 - a cube with 25 squares on each face - blindfolded cubing event in 2017, adding international recognition to his series of national titiles.
