43&amp;#160;252&amp;#160;003&amp;#160;274&amp;#160;489&amp;#160;856&amp;#160;000

I respect the cube. I cannot fathom it. I do not want to learn how to do it from anybody else. Instead I want to experience the simple moves that hopelessly and mercilessly turn order into disorder.&nbsp; Whichever way I turn, disorder gives way to more disorder. It seems as hopeless to restore order as it is to get the spilt milk back into the jug.

&amp;#8212;Gy&ouml;rgy Marx
Imagine a solved Rubik&amp;#8217;s cube. &nbsp;Now imagine just one of the corners mis-coloured. You have imagined an impossible state.
It&amp;#8217;s impossible to twist just one corner of the cube clockwise or anticlockwise.&nbsp; It&amp;#8217;s impossible to twist just two corners of the cube clockwise or anticlockwise. The minimum change is three corners twisted clockwise, or three corners twisted anticlockwise.
Quarks are like that too.&nbsp;(Solomon Golomb noticed this first.)&nbsp; The universe never makes just one quark alone, or just two quarks alone.&nbsp; The universe only makes three quarks together all at once. &nbsp;
There&amp;#8217;s more. The universe does put a quark and an antiquark together. (Instead of making a proton or neutron this makes a &amp;#8220;meson&amp;#8221;).&nbsp; And likewise, the cube allows a twist and an anti-twist on just two corners.
What does quantum chromodynamics have to do with Ernő Rubik&#039;s invention? There is just something similar in their group structure. &nbsp;Just as a particle&#039;s baryon number must be conserved, so a similar SU(3) like property characterizes the cube.&nbsp;Spooky.
And. 43&amp;#160;252&amp;#160;003&amp;#160;274&amp;#160;489&amp;#160;856&amp;#160;000.
There are 43&amp;#160;252&amp;#160;003&amp;#160;274&amp;#160;489&amp;#160;856&amp;#160;000 possible arrangements of the cube, only 1 of which is correct.
43&amp;#160;252&amp;#160;003&amp;#160;274&amp;#160;489&amp;#160;856&amp;#160;000 states of disorder and 1 state of complete order. Need I say the word? &nbsp;Entropy.