Rubik's Cube

The Rubik's Cube is a plastic cube with six faces, each of which has a different color on it and is made up of nine smaller squares. It was invented by Hungarian designer, architect, and university professor Ernö Rubik in 1974. It was originally named “Magic Cube” by its creator, but it began to be commercialized under the name Rubik's Cube in 1980 because of marketing reasons. In the 1980s, the Rubik's Cube became a worldwide phenomenon, with millions of items being sold.

Ernö Rubik, a professor of physics, designed the Cube when he was looking for a way to teach his students about spatial relationships. The cube would provide them with an example of how spatial relationships worked. Rubik claimed that he had found inspiration for the design of the cube's squares after seeing the pebbles in the Danube River shores. Though intended to be solely a teaching aid, the cube became a hit among Rubik's students. Realizing the commercial potential of his invention, Rubik applied for and obtained a Hungarian patent in 1975. Three years later, the first cubes began to be sold in Budapest, Hungary.

Around 1980, Rubik's Cube spread out all over the world like a virus. Failing to realize the high demand and the almost instant popularity of the cube, the producers [Page 612]faced a shortage of the original cube, which in turn caused a flood of cheaper imitations to appear to meet the insatiable demand. In the early 1980s, about 200 million cubes were sold worldwide.

Many people consider a Rubik's Cube to be challenging and fun play, while others find it too frustrating to be fun.

The cube received numerous awards for its innovative design. In 1980 it was named Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) in Germany. At the height of its popularity, the American television network ABC even developed a show based on the cube. In 1981 the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) of New York City organized a Rubik's Cube exhibition. The term Rubik's Cube was included in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1982. At the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee, a six-foot cube was put on display. Removed after the fair, it was placed in the Holiday Inn lobby in July 2007.

Made up of six faces, each face has three horizontal layers and three vertical columns. There are eight movable cubes on the corners and 12 movable cubes on the edges. Only the corners and edges can actually move—the center cubes are fixed and rotate in place, but do not move. The Rubik's Cube's original colors were yellow, blue, green, red, orange, and white, but there were many other color combinations created to mark special occasions, such as the 25th anniversary of the Rubik's Cube. To celebrate this occasion, a special limited edition of Rubik's Cubes with a commemorative sticker was issued in 2005.

It is estimated that there are more than 43 trillion possible moves, but only one solution. However, the cube can be solved in 26 moves. Despite high sales, most people solved just one or two sides, and were unable to solve the cube completely. Solving the cube became a headache for many a person worldwide. People who had succeeded in solving it decided to go public and tell the world how to solve it. David Singmaster developed a method in Notes on Rubik's Magic Cube (1980). You Can Do the Cube, published in 1981 and written by a 12-year-old English schoolboy, Patrick Bossert, sold 1.5 million copies worldwide, running 17 editions, and became The Times number one book.

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