Celebrating 50 Years of the Rubik’s Cube: From Educational Tool to Global Craze

 

The resolution of the famous puzzle today is the subject of real tournaments, and there are thousands of champions specialized in "speedcubing" that can solve it in less than a minute. But when it was born, the Rubik’s Cube was to serve as an educational support for students of architecture: so Erno Rubik had the idea that revolutionized the world of puzzles, and not only.

In the eighties, it was a real craze, and even today it involves thousands of fans in fierce competitions: we are talking about the Rubik’s Cube. The inventor was thirty-thirty when he gave his students a simple way to understand three-dimensional geometry, and today, after fifty years, he is one of the richest men in his country, and his game is one of the most loved and purchased in the world.

Erno Rubik, beyond the Cube

The inventor of the Rubik’s Cube, Ernő Rubik, a 79-year-old Hungarian, says, “I tried, I made a mistake, I tried again, and every mistake made me understand something brought me closer and closer to the solution.” Besides being the man who invented one of the most curious puzzles ever, who is Erno Rubik?

Mr. Rubik was born in Hungary on 13 July 1944. He is the son of an engineer and a poet, and who knows, maybe these two aspects so distant combined so well in him to give the push to the brilliant idea that will make him famous. But before you connect his name to the cube, what did Rubik do?

Graduated in architecture, he worked for a short time in a studio in Budapest before returning to the Academy of Applied Art Moholy-Nagy, where he began teaching in 1973. It was precisely because of "educational needs" that Erno Rubik came to mind the idea of a game to understand three-dimensional geometry: in addition to being passionate about art and design, Erno had always been a fan of puzzles and puzzles. After the Rubik-Studio, where he designs furniture and toys even today. In addition to continuing his activity as an inventor of games and refined designers, Rubik has also founded an association that promotes, through scholarships, young engineers and architects of the future. The success of his cube realizes the dream of publishing a magazine of puzzles, and subsequently creates the.

From its origins to today: 350 million Cubes

The Rubik’s Cube was one of the best-selling games in the world: in 2009, 350 million copies were purchased. The operation of the game is known to all: each of the six faces of the solid is covered with nine stickers of different colors, and an internal mechanism allows the faces to rotate so as to mix yellow, red, green, and blue. The aim of the game is to return each color to its place so that each face shows only one.

The cube today is almost an object of common use, such was its fame, but when it came out in the eighties appeared as an unusual game, crazy, but beautiful. Initially, it was called "Buvos Kocka" (literally "magic cube"), and was produced by Politechnika, a Hungarian toy company. The idea was later acquired by Ideal Toy Corp who began calling it "Rubik’s Cube" in honor of its inventor. In the same year of release on international trade, the puzzle won the prize as Toy of the Year, but its success had yet to come: in 2009 it was calculated that 350 million Rubik’s cubes had been sold in the world.

Speedcubing: the Cube becomes a "sport"

One of the participants in the 2017 Rubik’s Cube World Championship tries to solve the puzzle as quickly as possible. Founded in 2003, the World Cube Association is a kind of real federation for the "athletes" of the cube, which every year compete in speedcubing races. Obviously, these are competitions in which it is mandatory to know how to solve the puzzle, but not only: time is fundamental. 50 seconds is the maximum time that can be used to return the faces of the cube to a single color, and 18 are the categories provided by the regulation: different sizes and shapes, and even special resolution modes, such as the one in which the competitor is blindfolded or, even more curious, the one in which the cube is recomposed with the feet rather than with the hands.

SOURCES: La Repubblica, Open, Almanacco, Fanpage

Today’s Blogger

My name is Giulia Cinti, and I am a 15-year-old student living in Subiaco. I am currently enrolled in the third year of the liceo classico. Besides my passion for ancient languages, I also enjoy studying modern European languages. In the future, I aspire to pursue a career in law and specialize in international law. I have a deep appreciation for art and culture, often visiting exhibitions, museums, and other places of cultural interest in my free time. Besides all that, I love dedicating my time to volunteer work at the canteen of the Community of Sant'Egidio in Rome.