Cube of Space letters with six cardinal directions (up, down, east, west, north, south). The verse in chapter 5 associates 12 hebrew letters with either 12 diagonal directional 'arms' or 12 diagonal boundaries (different translations contradict each other), which some interpret as referring to the 12 edges of an octahedron, though Paul Foster Case interpreted these as the 12 edges of a cube. In the most authoritative English translation of the Sepher Yetzirah, scholar Aryeh Kaplan interprets this verse (Chapter 5, Verse 2) as describing a cube. (Sefer Yetzirah Page 203) While occult author Kevin Townley explains a cosmology with an octahedron within
Rubik's Cube pair of edges while leaving the others intact. Some algorithms do have a certain desired effect on the cube (for example, swapping two corners) but may also have the side-effect of changing other parts of the cube (such as permuting some edges). Such algorithms are often simpler than the ones without side-effects and are employed early on in the solution when most of the puzzle has not yet been solved and the side-effects are not important. Most are long and difficult to memorise. Towards the end of the solution, the more specific (and usually more complicated) algorithms are used instead.