40 Facts You Probably Didn't Know About Rubik's Cube
The insanely addictive puzzle is 40 this year. Happy Birthday!
You probably noticed today's Google Doodle right?
1. Rubik's Cube is 40 years old!
Via wikipedia.org
2. In 1974, a young professor of architecture in Budapest created an apparently impossible object.
Via rubiks.com
3. The first Magic Cube (as it was originally known) was sold in a Budapest toy shop in 1975.
Via rubiks.com
4. The puzzle is made up of twenty-six miniature cubes, known as "cubies" or "cubelets".
commons.wikimedia.org / Wikimedia Commons
Each cublet includes an ingenious hidden internal mechanism that somehow allows the cubes to interlock with their neighbours and move in different directions.
5. The Magic Cube was renamed Rubik's Cube in 1980.
Via rubiks.com
6. Rubik wanted a working model to help explain three-dimensional geometry.
Via ruwix.com
7. It took him well over a month to work out the solution to his puzzle.
8. Rubik's solid cube twisted and turned - and yet did not break or fall apart. Some people are still trying to work it out.
9. It won Toy of the Year in 1980 and 1981.
10. Over 350 million Rubik’s Cubes have been sold worldwide – making it the bestselling toy of all time.
Via edition.cnn.com
11. A Rubik's Cube has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible configurations.
Via rubiks.com
12. With six coloured sides, 21 pieces and 54 outer surfaces, there's a combined total of over 43 QUINTILLIOIN different possible configurations.
Via omgfacts.com
13. If you turned Rubik's Cube once every second it would take you 1400 TRILLION YEARS to finish to go through all the configurations.
Via quickmeme.com
14. If you had started this project during the Big Bang, you still wouldn't be done yet.
15. Yet, amazingly, the best speed cubers* can solve the cube in under six seconds.
Via bestspeedcube.com
Speed cubers = people who take part in speed cubing – a sport where competitors try and solve the cube as quickly as possible.
16. The current world record holder is Mats Valk from the Netherlands. Who completed the puzzle in 5.55 seconds.
View this video on YouTube
17. He was pretty happy!!!
Via reddit.com
18. This beat the previous record of 5.66 seconds held by Australia's Feliks Zemdegs.
View this video on YouTube
19. Some speed-cubers go for style points over raw speed.
Via imgur.com
20. This guy took a whole 25 seconds. But he was doing one-handed push-ups AT THE SAME TIME!
View this video on YouTube
21. Another dude took 28.80 seconds to solve the puzzle BLINDFOLDED!
View this video on YouTube
22. A three-year-old in China solved the puzzle in under two minutes.
View this video on YouTube
23. And then there's this guy, clocking in at ten minutes, using his nipple. Oh, internet.
View this video on YouTube
24. Smartphone-powered Lego robots can solve Rubik's Cube faster than humans.
Via reddit.com
25. Earlier this year CubeStormer 3 solved a Rubik's Cube in 3.253 seconds!
View this video on YouTube
26. Hell, even Mantis Shrimp can do the puzzle.
View this video on YouTube
27. In 1981, You Can Do The Cube by Patrick Bossert sold 1.5m copies.
Via rubiks.com
28. The first annual International Rubik's Championships were held in 1982.
Via rubiks.com
29. The winner was Minh Thai (USA) with a relatively slow (compared to modern times) solve of 22.95 seconds.
View this video on YouTube
30. Every legal permutation of the Rubik’s Cube can be solved in 20 moves or less.
Via t-shirtrater.com
31. The world's largest Rubik's Cube is located in Knoxville, Tennessee. It is three metres tall and weighs over 500kg.
Flickr: ribarnica / Creative Commons
32. The smallest cube is 10mm wide and was made by Russian Evgeniy Grigoriev.
33. It is fully functional and can be used like a normal cube.
View this video on YouTube
34. In 2011 Evgeniy created an even smaller cube so tiny it could only be 3D printed.
View this video on YouTube
35. The most expensive cube ever produced is the Masterpiece Cube, created by Diamond Cutters International in 1995.
lsc.org / Via rubikpromotions.com
36. This actual size, fully-functional cube features 22.5 carats of amethyst, 34 carats of rubies and 34 carats of emeralds, all set in 18-carat gold, and has been valued at $1.5m.
Via bornrich.com
37. Rubik Cube obsessives are known as "Cubaholics". There's even been a documentary.
Via cubers.com
38. In 1981, British pop group, The Barron Knights released a song called Mr. Rubik which appeared on their album Twisting The Knights Away. The song is about a person who is going crazy after playing a Rubik's Cube.
Via musicstack.com
39. In 2011 Cubeworks, a Toronto collective, recreated more than 40 famous artworks with Rubik's Cubes.
Via cubeworks.ca
40. There's even been a Mario version*.
Via geeky-gadgets.com
*created via Photoshop sadly, so you can't get your hands on one.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUBIK'S CUBE!!!
Via loveycakes.wordpress.com
"If you are curious, you'll find the puzzles around you. If you are determined, you will solve them." – Erno Rubik.
An earlier version of this post did not properly cite a source for the explanation of the ingenious internal mechanism that powers Rubik's cube.