Rubik’s Cube was an Addictive 3D puzzle game invented by Erno Rubik, a Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture in 1974. The idea was to jumble up all the coloured squares and then try to restore it to its original condition (each face of the cube a single colour).
Erno Rubik quite humbly first called the Rubik’s Cube the “Magic Cube” – that was until Ideal Toys bought out the rights for the toy in 1980 and thought it would sell better taking on the maker’s name – that was after toying with the names “The Gordian Knot” and “Inca Gold”.
As the old adage goes – ‘the simplest ideas are often the best’ and in principle the build and concept behind the Rubik’s Cube was pretty straightforward. However, it notoriously became one of the most complex puzzles to solve. The original Rubik’s Cube was build up of six faces, all of which had nine individual smaller squares coloured by six different coloured stickers. The idea was to twist the individual lines of the square so that each face of the Cube contained a solid colour.
The standard cube was three squares wide by three squares high. Measuring approximately 5.7 centimetres, the Rubik’s Cube contains twenty-six miniature cubes all connected to each other by the central mechanism with three intersecting axes. It was very hard not to get curious and find out how the Rubik’s Cube worked, but luckily the cubes came away very easily and would build together again without too many problems. This meant that it was a pretty impossible puzzle to accidentally break.
Curiously, there isn’t a standard colour arrangement for all Rubik’s Cubes. Newer cubes are arranged as red opposite orange, yellow opposite white and green opposite blue although it is possible to track down cubes with different colour arrangements.
As the Rubik’s Cube increased in popularity more and more special edition cubes were released. These included the 2x2x2 Pocket Cube, the 4x4x4 cube dubbed ‘Rubik’s Revenge’ and the 5x5x5 Professor’s Cube.
It’s worrying to think that Rubik’s ‘Magic Cube’ nearly didn’t get launched! Previously, in March 1970 a Canadian called Larry Nichols invented and filed a patent application for a 2x2x2 “Puzzle with Pieces Rotatable in Groups”, although this cube was held together by magnetic force. Similarly, the UK-based Frank Fox applied to patent a “Spherical 3x3x3” puzzle and received his UK patent on January 16, 1974. So close! Rubik managed to obtain a Hungarian patent for his Magic Cube in 1975 but unaware of the potential didn’t take out an international patent. The Magic Cube first started filling shelves in Hungarian toyshops and in September 1979 he managed to sign a deal with Ideal Toys to begin distributing the plastic interlocking puzzle in toy fairs across London, Paris, Nuremberg and New York.
Alas, toy safety specifications and packaging rules were far stricter in London and America than they were in Rubik’s home country so very early in its release it was taken off the toy shelves for a while. After this first hiccup the Rubik’s Cube was built of much lighter material. Unfortunately, Rubik’s Cube fever had already hit and so the shortage of the cubes led to many cheaper imitations of the cube to satisfy the masses.
After its launch a whole host of solutions for the Rubik’s Cube were released, the most popular being by David Singmaster in his published book ‘Notes on Rubik’s Magic Cube’ back in 1981. However, that wasn’t good enough for some with more solutions being published that helped puzzle solvers sort the cube in faster and faster times. The average time for solving a Rubik’s Cube in any combination is just under five minutes.
Rubik’s Cube trivia
Rubik’s Cube was recently given the award for UK CoolBrands 2007/08.
Rubik’s Cube is said to be the world’s best-selling toy with now over 300,000,000 of the cubes sold worldwide.
A 7x7x7 Rubik’s Cube is rumoured for release this year.
A normal (3×3×3) Rubik's Cube can have (8! × 38) × (12! × 212) = 519,024,039,293,878,272,000 different positions. Although the Rubik’s Cube marketing normally just says ‘billions’ of positions as the number is so huge and difficult to comprehend.
The first international Rubik’s Cube world championship took place in Budapest on June 5, 1982 where Minh Thai, a Vietnamese student solved the cube in 22.95 seconds.
Rubik’s Cubes are often rubbed in petroleum jelly before a contest begins to ensure the turns are quick and smooth!
The World Cube Association has been known to hold blindfolded, one-handed and feet solving Rubik’s competitions as official events.
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Lesley said:
I am one of the stupid one's that removed the stickers due to frustration, it was never the same though as they all curled up at the corners.
Wednesday October 29, 2008, 03:15 PM
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