Play 5x5 Rubik's Cube Online

Inside the Professor’s Cube: 98 pieces around fixed centers

The 5x5, also known as the Professor’s Cube, carries 150 stickers on 98 visible pieces. There are 8 corners, as on every cube. Each of the 12 edges is a row of three pieces, a middle edge piece that behaves like a 3x3 edge between two wing pieces, so 36 edge pieces in all. Each face has nine center stickers: one fixed center attached to the core, surrounded by eight movable center pieces, 48 of them across the cube.

Two things follow. The six fixed centers always keep the same arrangement, so unlike on a 4x4 the color scheme is decided for you. And with an odd number of layers, every axis has a true middle slice, like the M, E and S slices of a 3x3, which you can turn directly here.

Turning five layers in the 5x5 simulator

Every drag is one quarter turn, and the row it starts on picks which of the five layers moves:

• Outer row: the face itself, logged as R, U, F and so on.
• Second row: that layer alone, logged as 2R, 2U and so on.
• Center row: the middle slice, logged with a 3, as in 3R or 3U′.

With Wide turns ticked, Shift held during the drag, or wide mode switched on with W, a drag takes every layer between its row and the nearer face along: Rw from the outer or second row, 3Rw from the center row. On the keyboard, type 2 or 3 before a face letter for the second layer or the middle slice. The Rubik’s cube notation guide explains the plain face letters these names build on.

Scrambles on the 5x5x5 cube online

Scramble applies 60 random turns to a solved cube and shows only the result, with no animation and no written sequence. It uses face turns and two-layer wide turns, quarter or half, and never turns one axis twice in a row. That is a random-move scramble, and 60 turns leave a cube this size well mixed. Every new scramble empties the move list and resets the counter and the clock.

For a repeatable start, add the moves to the page address: /simulator/5x5?alg=Rw U2 3R F' 2L opens the cube with that sequence already applied, and 3R, 3Rw and a lowercase r for Rw are all understood. If the address holds something the simulator cannot read, it quietly shows a solved cube instead.

How to solve a 5x5 Rubik’s cube: the reduction plan

This site has no 5x5 solver and no 5x5 guide, so here is the usual plan in outline: reduction, the same idea as on the 4x4, which groups small pieces into big blocks until the cube behaves like a 3x3.

1. Centers. Build a 3x3 block of one color around each fixed middle center, usually white first, then yellow, then the four sides.
2. Edges. Join the two wings of each edge to their matching middle piece until all 12 edges are solid three-piece bars. Pair them one at a time on the sides while the top and bottom hold the edges still waiting.
3. The last two edges. These are the tricky part: a pair of wings can end up flipped against its middle piece, a case that needs its own algorithm.
4. The 3x3 stage. Solve the cube like a 3x3 with outer turns only.

Because the fixed centers and middle edge pieces act like a 3x3’s, the swapped-edge and flipped-edge parities of the 4x4 never appear at the end. The reduction basics are taught with 3D demonstrations in how to solve a 4x4 Rubik’s cube; the ideas carry over, with bigger centers and three-piece edges.

Practice ideas for the virtual 5x5

• Centers only Scramble, build the white center, orbit the view to check it from every side, then press Reset and do it again. The move counter shows whether you are getting more efficient.
• Middle-slice control Turn the center row back and forth without disturbing the outer faces. It is the move that separates the 5x5 from the 4x4, and slices are easy to turn the wrong way at first.
• Undo as a teacher Try a three-move insertion, watch what it does to a half-built center, and take it back with Backspace.
• Clearer colors With 150 stickers on screen, similar shades slow you down. The Colors button lets you pick your own sticker colors, saved in this browser.

Timing a long solve on the virtual 5x5 cube

Tick Time my solve before you begin. After a scramble the clock waits for your opening turn, then runs until all six faces are single colors, and one line gives the number of moves and the time. A full solve by mouse or finger can easily run to a few hundred turns, so expect long times and compare them with your own earlier ones.

There is no Solve this state button here, because the site has no 5x5 solver: if you get lost, Undo walks back one turn at a time, or Reset starts over. For a smaller cube that does hand tricky positions to a solver, try the virtual 4x4 Rubik’s cube.